Lashell Quinnie

“It was Grandma Holland from Rhode Island—my mother’s mother—who appeared for me finally at the classroom door. She and Mrs. Nelkin whispered together at the front of the room in a way that made me wonder if they knew each other. Then, in a sweeter voice than I was used to, Mrs. Nelkin told me I could go home. We didn’t go home, though. Grandma led me down the two flights of school stairs and out into a taxicab, which took us to St. Paul’s Cathedral. On the way there she told me my mother had had to go to a big hospital in Hartford because of “female trouble” and that my father had gone with her. Ma would be gone for at least two weeks and she, Grandma, would take care of me. There just wasn’t any baby anymore and that was that. We were having creamed dried beef for supper.”
― Wally Lamb, She's Come Undone

“Then I learned that I could bend the world to my will, as a bow is bent for an arrow. I would have done that toil a thousand times to keep such power in my hands.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Your little buddy just gave me the greatest
   Christmas gift I've ever gotten.”
― Kyle Keyes, Under the Bus

“I tell you, my dear, Narcissus was no egoist… he was merely another of us who, in our unshatterable isolation, recognized, on seeing his reflection, the one beautiful comrade, the only inseparable love… poor Narcissus, possibly the only human who was ever honest on this point.”
― Truman Capote, Other Voices, Other Rooms