Sara’s Reviews > Atmosphere > Status Update

It's about the collective, not the individual."
Lydia -"You're saying be less American, be more Soviet."
Joan laughed. "I absolutely did not say that!"
"Yeah," Lydia said, laughing. "You did. I'm going to tell everyone you said I needed to be more Soviet in my mentality, and you're gonna get kicked off LR7 for being unfit to serve and I'm gonna get your spot. I finally figured it out."

Joan laughed, despite herself.
"Lydia Danes, as I live and breathe," Donna said. "Did you just make a good joke?"
"I can be funny, you know."
"No," Donna said. "Nobody knew that."

"I'm so annoyed," Joan said
"At me?" Lydia asked, with such a childlike vulnerability that it softened Joan's heart.
"No, at them. It's their fault we are fighting at all. I am actually mad at them, but instead I'm blaming you."
"Well, as you know," Lydia said, smiling, "women can be very irrational."

The world had decided that to be fallible was weak. But we are all fallible. The strong ones are the ones who accept it.

Joan had let men like Jimmy set the terms.

But the terms were false, even to him. He was just as scared as anybody else.

Bravery, Joan suspected, is almost always a lie. Courage is all we have.

She was trying to prove that she could be just like a man to all of them. To Jimmy. To Lydia. Because the world had decided that to be soft was to be weak, even though in Joan's experience being soft and flexible was always more durable than being hard and brittle. Admitting you were afraid always took more guts than pretending you weren't. Being willing to make a mistake got you further than never trying.

"Well, we are the stars," Joan said. "And the stars are us. Every atom in our bodies was once out there. Was once a part of them. To look at the night sky is to look at parts of who you once were, who you may one day be."