Velvet

“The defenders of decent society and the disciples of degeneracy are often the same people.”
― Caleb Carr, The Alienist

“I’d have bet on seeing Eva Gabor on Forty-Second Street before you. Are you crying?” “No. Yes. Oh, Bobby!” Sue explained: She had been in the city for two months, sleeping on Rebecca’s couch. Her savings were running out. No agents would give her the time of day.”
― Tom Hanks, Uncommon Type: Some Stories

“I thought being a man was having control. Being the master and commander of your own destiny. How could any boy know that freedom is lost the moment you become a man. Things start to count. To press in. Constricting slowly, inevitably, creating a cage of inconveniences and duties and deadlines and failed plans and lost friends.”
― Pierce Brown, Morning Star

“Sweet tea with milk, three Oreos, and Bob Roy’s snug and cozy flat helped Sue breathe deeply for the first time in months. She let out a sigh as big as a cresting wave and leaned back into a chair so soft it put the z in cozy. “Okay,” Bob said. “Tell me everything.” She opened up about, well, everything, cued by Bob’s sympathy. He uttered his support at every story, every anecdote: New York was the only place for Sue to be! Shelley and her “yeah, okay” attitude were to be expected from such a see-you-next-Tuesday! The subway was survivable as long as you never made eye contact with anyone. You found an apartment by reading the Rental classifieds in the Times and The Village Voice, but you had to get them early, at seven in the morning, and then you had to hightail it to the apartments with a bag of donuts because the super would always open up for a pretty girl who shared her donuts.”
― Tom Hanks, Uncommon Type: Some Stories