Ruby

“Why wasn’t friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn’t it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by sex or physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“I admired how she knew, well before I did, that the point of a child is not what you hope he will accomplish in your name but the pleasure that he will bring you, whatever form it comes in, even if it is a form that is barely recognizable as pleasure at all - and more important, the pleasure you will be privileged to bring him.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“the daily effort it took to appear normal was so great that it left energy for little else.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“There were times when the pressure to achieve happiness felt almost oppressive, as if happiness were something that everyone should and could attain, that any sort of compromise in its pursuit was somehow your fault.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life