Barbara

“It puzzled him that she did not mourn all the things she could have been. Was it a quality inherent in women, or did they just learn to shield their personal regrets, to suspend their lives, subsume themselves in child care?”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“It’s not that my parents badmouthed religion. It’s just that religion wasn’t for us. We lived in the twentieth century, for crying out loud. In our house, spirituality was almost a taboo subject, much like my father’s salary or my sister’s clove-cigarette habit.”
― A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible

“Surviving is some kind of sin, like floating up off the dunking stool like a witch. You have to be permanently écorchée, heart-on-sleeve, offering up organs and body parts like a medieval female saint.”
― Roxane Gay, Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture

“You’ll find that most people here are more adept at appearing intelligent than actually being so. They’re mostly dolts.”
― Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard