Ally

“Money, or the lack of it, pervaded the house as only something that is absent can”
― Elizabeth Wurtzel, Prozac Nation

“Cities can be lonely places, and in admitting this we see that loneliness doesn't necessarily require physical solitude, but rather an absence or paucity of connection, closeness, kinship: an inability, for one reason or another, to find as much intimacy as is desired.”
― Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

“I wanted very much not to be where I was. In fact part of the trouble seemed to be that where I was wasn't anywhere at all. My life felt empty and unreal and I was embarrassed about its thinness, the way one might be embarrassed about wearing a stained or threadbare piece of clothing.”
― Olivia Laing, The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone

“I think about Hélène: the night before we opened, when she smudged the theatre with Palo Santo and prayed for our success. How maybe her prayer had been only that we carry out our work, not that we were elevated for how we did it. Although that's nice, if it comes. It's just beyond the realm of prayer. Something even more tenuous than a wish. Nothing to stake a life on if you then intend to live the rest of that life.”
― Jen Silverman, We Play Ourselves