Beautiful World, Where Are You

by Sally Rooney

We can’t conserve anything, and especially not social relations, without altering their nature, arresting some part of their interaction with time in an unnatural way.

Presumably, remembered suffering never feels as bad as present suffering, even if it was really a lot worse—we can’t remember how much worse it was, because remembering is weaker than experiencing.

Maybe certain kinds of pain, at certain formative stages in life, just impress themselves into a person’s sense of self permanently.