Matt

“He can’t help Marianne, no matter what he does. There’s something frightening about her, some huge emptiness in the pit of her being. It’s like waiting for a lift to arrive and when the doors open nothing is there, just the terrible dark emptiness of the elevator shaft, on and on forever. She’s missing some primal instinct, self-defense or self-preservation, which makes other human beings comprehensible. You lean in expecting resistance, and everything just falls away in front of you.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“He has sincerely wanted to die, but he has never sincerely wanted Marianne to forget about him. That’s the only part of himself he wants to protect, the part that exists inside her. ”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“She'd climbed into his heart without thinking, the way that a kid idly tongues a loose tooth.”
― Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory

“Blink, and the years fall away like leaves.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue