Elaine

“I'd live with loneliness a long time. That was something which was always there... one learns to keep it at bay, there are times when one even enjoys it - but there are also times when a desperate self-sufficiency doesn't quite suffice, and then the search for the anodyne begins... the radio, the dog, the shampoo, the stockings-to-wash, the tin soldier...”
― Mary Stewart, Nine Coaches Waiting

“The feeling that she had never really lived in this world caught her by surprise. It was a fact. She had never lived. Even as a child, as far back as she could remember, she had done nothing but endure. She had believed in her own inherent goodness, her humanity, and lived accordingly, never causing anyone harm. Her devotion to doing things the right way had been unflagging, all her successes had depended on it, and she would have gone on like that indefinitely. She didn't understand why, but faced with those decaying buildings and straggling grasses, she was nothing but a child who had never lived.”
― Han Kang, The Vegetarian

“She took her hatchet. She took flint and tinder. And like her mother she dug up her yams.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

“In whatever relationship I get into, I have to keep some parts of myself tucked away.
Another part of it is that meeting new people is often a lesson for them on race and there is just not enough time in my life to continue delivering that lecture.”
― Gita Jackson, The Secret Loves of Geek Girls