Status Updates From I'll Take the Fire

'When people ask me where I'm from, I never know what to say.'

'It's one of the first things a woman learns to do, pretending.'

Nice book

'Did modern France really have anything to do with Zola, Balzac, Aragon? Besides, in these novels - novels that she loved as much as any books she'd ever read, and which she'd already packed in her suitcase - she had never come across a girl like her. If she did not exist in their books, could she exist in real life?'

'But Mia was busy reading other books. That summer, she devoured novels by Marguerite Duras and James Baldwin.'

'I can see it's getting into Mia's head. That's why she dresses like a boy - she thinks she can escape the curse of girls and mothers, who always end up acting like martyrs.'

'You mentioned Proust earlier. If I could give you one piece of advice, mademoiselle, it would be this: find your madeleine.'