Jenny

“There may be no book on the mothers of poets, or artists in general, but it might one day be written and would be, I think, an enlightening read.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, What W.H. Auden Can Do for You

“Empathy isn't just something that happens to us - a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain - it's also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves. It's made of exertion, that dowdier cousin of impulse. Sometimes we care for another because we know we should, or because it's asked for, but this doesn't make our caring hollow. This confession of effort chafes against the notion that empathy should always rise unbidden, that genuine means the same thing as unwilled, that intentionality is the enemy of love. But I believe in intention and I believe in work. I believe in waking up in the middle of the night and packing our bags and leaving our worst selves for our better ones.”
― Leslie Jamison, The Empathy Exams

“It's so difficult to sustain a fatwa,' said Domenica. 'One has to be so enthusiastic. I'm not sure if I could find the moral energy myself.”
― Alexander McCall Smith, 44 Scotland Street

“She was monumentally, conspicuously damaged in a way that was, to us then, ineffably chic.”
― Katie Roiphe