Maddy

“That’s what I dislike most of all in people – cold irony. It’s a very cowardly attitude to mock or belittle everything, never be committed to anything, not feel tied to anything. Like an impotent man who can’t experience pleasure himself, but will do all he can to ruin it for others.”
― Olga Tokarczuk

“Cor cordium, heart of hearts, I’ve never said anything truer in my life to anyone.”
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name

“To be something, to have status in society, to be born at the centre of things, to live through momentous times, to be part of the world’s anthology of stories - if only in the gap between the lines, between the words, between the letters, or even in the minute blank space inside the lower-case ‘e’, just once in that dauntingly long book; could there be any more human desire than that? Don’t we all long to be something, to feel that we exist, that others notice our existence, for the brief space of time that we are here?”
― Sjón, Codex 1962

“Keep away from the literal-minded folk, and ignore the scoffers.”
― Philip Pullman, The Secret Commonwealth