Alaina

“Seeing ourselves clearly is the project of a lifetime.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Forget about what you are escaping from. Reserve your anxiety for what you are escaping to.”
― Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“In what disorder we lived, how many fragments of ourselves were scattered, as if to live were to explode into splinters.”
― Elena Ferrante, The Story of the Lost Child

“After all, what can a first impression tell us about someone we’ve just met for a minute in the lobby of a hotel? For that matter, what can a first impression tell us about anyone? Why, no more than a chord can tell us about Beethoven, or a brushstroke about Botticelli. By their very nature, human beings are so capricious, so complex, so delightfully contradictory, that they deserve not only our consideration, but our reconsideration—and our unwavering determination to withhold our opinion until we have engaged with them in every possible setting at every possible hour.”
― Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow