Quotables #writing #amreading

On the Lonesome Lows:

“When it snows, God is telling me: Stay home, stay in bed, stay warm.

It snows a lot.

Not just outside, but inside my bedroom too. Except inside there are no distinct seasons. It can snow anytime. I am kind of used to it now. Sometimes it’s even pretty, when it covers my entire head and make all the thinking slow down. But not when it piles and piles up until I can’t get to my closet or get through my door.”

God Loves Hair by Vivek Shraya, 2010:93-94.

 

 

On Love:

“What you want to know, Majnoun, is not what love means. It means no one thing and never will. What you want to know is what Nira meant when she used the word. This is more difficult, because Nira’s word is like a long journey taken by one woman alone. She read the word in books, heard it in conversations, talked about it with friends and family, Miguel and you. No other being has encountered the word love as Nira has or used it in quite the same ways…”

Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis, 2015: 205.

 

On Modern Love: 

“There’s no e-mail from Olly. Not one. I even check my spam folder. This shouldn’t bother me and it doesn’t. It doesn’t bother me a lot. In the interest thoroughness, I refresh my e-mail three more times in about two seconds. Maybe it’s just hiding somewhere, stuck behind another one.”

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, 2016: 75.

 

On Faith and Healing:

“The hawthorn at the tiny holy well stood up before her, its disintegrating rags dancing in a breath of warm wind. Lib saw the point of such superstition now. If there was a ritual she could perform that offered a chance of saving Anna, wouldn’t she try it? She’d bow down to a tree or a rock or a carved turnip for the child’s sake. Lib thought of all those people walking away from this tree over the centuries, trying to believe that they’d left their aches and sorrows behind. Years on, some of them reminding themselves, If I still feel the pain, that’s only because the rag’s not quite rotten yet.”

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue, 2016: 261.