Ruby

“I will build myself up so high in such a short time that when he leaves me, I will become a lightning storm, a nuclear apocalypse.

I will not come out of this with nothing.”
― Frances Cha, If I Had Your Face

“But looking at a photograph of oneself is not proof of an affair. And asking a question about a type of flower is not proof of an affair. Thes are, though, the kinds of things that fester in a person's mind until she no longer feels loved; they are the happenings that took us from a place we could have survived, even in the grave face of death that nearly killed me, too, to the place we simply could not com eback from. These things became too heavy and too hurtful, habitual abuses in what once felt like the safest place in the world.”
― Ashley Audrain, The Push

“We can't change the world, and a lot of the time we can't even change people. No more than one bit at a time. So we do what we can to help whenever we get the chance, sweetheart. We save those we can. We do our best. Then we try to find a way to convince ourselves that that will just have to...be enough. So we can live with our failures without drowning.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“There are many dangers here, child, she’d said once. Many. Many ugly things you’re going to have to do. It will be a great contest for you. And you’re going to think: How do I win?

And the answer is—so long as you are alive, you are winning. The only hope you should ever have is to see the next day, and the next. Some here will whisper of liberty—but you can’t be free if you aren’t alive.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, Foundryside