Alexandria Chamberlain

“The children, the veal, they stand very still because tenderness depends on how little the world touches you. To stay tender, the weight of your life cannot lean on your bones.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous

“You pump the dead full of chemicals and refuse to let anything rot—people or ideas or … or bad poetry, of which there is in fact some, even in perfectly metrical verse,” said Mahit. “Forgive me if I disagree with you on emulation. Teixcalaan is all about emulating what should already be dead.” “Are you Yskandr, or are you Mahit?” Three Seagrass asked, and that did seem to be the crux of it: Was she Yskandr, without him? Was there even such a thing as Mahit Dzmare, in the context of a Teixcalaanli city, a Teixcalaanli language, Teixcalaanli politics infecting her all through, like an imago she wasn’t suited for, tendrils of memory and experience growing into her like the infiltrates of some fast-growing fungus.”
― Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire

“Hoosiers aren't quitters. California people are quitters. No offense. It's just you've got restlessness in your blood." "I don't," she said, but he went on.
"Your people came here looking for something better. Gold, fame, citrus. Mirage. They were feckless, yeah? Schemers. That's why no one wants them now. Mojavs.”
― Claire Vaye Watkins, Gold Fame Citrus

“After all, a person is herself, and others. Relationships chisel the final shape of one's being. I am me, and you.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season