Nicole

“I know that I stopped thinking about extreme grief as the sole vehicle for great art when the grief started to take people with it. And I get it. The tortured artist is the artist that gets remembered for all time, particularly if they if they either perish or overcome. But the truth is that so many of us are stuck in the middle. So many of us begin tortured and end tortured, with only brief bursts of light in between, and I'd rather have average art and survival than miracles that come at the cost of someone's life.”
― Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib, They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us

“Once someone tries a real extra virgin -- an adult or a child, anybody with taste buds -- they'll never go back to the fake kind. It's distinctive, complex, the freshest thing you've ever eaten. It makes you realize how rotten the other stuff is, literally rotten. But there has to be a first time. Somehow we have to get those first drops of real extra virgin oil into their mouths, to break them free from the habituation to bad oil, and from the brainwashing of advertising. There has to be some good oil left in the world for people to taste.”
― Tom Mueller, Extra Virginity: The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil

“But luxury has never appealed to me, I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.”
― Daphne du Maurier

“Sometimes the sins you haven't committed are all you have left to hold onto.”
― David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames