It’s not that he was going nowhere, it’s that he’d already arrived.
A womans mistakes are different from a girls.
I couldn’t imagine owning beauty like my mothers. I wouldn’t dare.
Only peons made excusses for themselves she taught me. Never apologize, never explain.
What was beauty unless you intended to use it, like a hammer, or a key? It was just something for other people to use and admire, or envy, despise. To nail their dreams onto like a picture hanger on a blank wall. And so many girls saying, use me, dream me.
What happened to a dream without a dreamer?
I wandered through the stacks, running my hands along the spines of the books on the shelves, they reminded me of cultured or opinionated guests at a wonderful party, whispering to each other.
My loneliness tasted like pennies.
He reminded me of someone who put your fingers in the door and smiled and talked to you while he smashed them.
I could hear the icy winds of Sweden, but he didn’t seem to feel the chill.
I thought how tenuous the links were between mother and children between friends family things you think are eternal. Everything could be lost more easily than anyone could imagine.
We have no home, she told me. I am your home.
Your protagonist is your reader’s portal into the story. The more observant he or she can be, the more vivid will be the world you’re creating. They don’t have to be super-educated, they just have to be mentally active. Keep them looking, thinking, wondering, remembering.
What can I say about life? Do I praise it for letting you live, or damn it for allowing the rest?
No matter how unappealing, each of them imagines he is somehow worthy.
Dawn has a way of casting a pall on any night magic.
We strive for beauty and balance, the sensual over the sentimental.
This is what happens when you fall in love. You’re looking at a natural disaster.
You must find a boy your own age. Someone mild and beautiful to be your lover. Someone who will tremble for your touch, offer you a marguerite by its long stem with his eyes lowered. Someone whose fingers are a poem.
One can bear anything. The pain we cannot bear will kill us outright.