Yuan’s Reviews > Katabasis > Status Update

“The strategy however was to dial a dozen other things up to full volume as well, so that the airwaves canceled each other out, and the cacophony in her head reached such a saturated state it approximated silence.”

“She was drained already. Scripts were all she had now, and they were enough to keep her walking, but not enough for her heart to start beating.”

“Professors, who saw dozens of hopeful faces over the course of a day, forgot always that they were their students' entire universe.”

“He loved numbers because they behaved the way they were supposed to, because the rules never changed. The square root of sixty-four never ceased to be eight.”

“She knew very well where the sun shone, and yet was bound by impulse to bury herself in the dark.”

“Believe the lie— trust the lie—it is the only thing you have. Stay in the cage and paint the walls. If you do not, then you must quit; but if you can delude yourself long enough, then your delusions might very well come true.”

“But all this was a fairy tale. In relentlessly enforcing the glamour, she had closed off her other options. And now she was left in a trap she had constructed for herself.”

“She thought she'd learned to inhabit the impossible ideal: the girl who was eminently fuckable but unreachable, and therefore virtuous and perfect.”