Reader

“To them I was first a Black, then a Black from another country, and then a person.”
― Maria Nhambu, America's Daughter

“Edward had once felt that a vineyard rolling up a mountainside over which the sun was setting was the most glorious thing he’d ever seen, but now that memory paled in comparison to the transcendent garden of life bursting forth down below.”
― Steven Decker, One More Life to Live

“Hand, nobody told me about the weight. Why didn't our parents tell us about the weight?

—What weight?

—The fucking weight, Hand. How does the woman Ingres live? The one from Marrakesh? If we're vessels, and we are, then we, you and I, are overfull, and that means she's at the bottom of a deep cold lake. How can she stand the hissing of all that water?

—We are not vessels; we are missiles.

—We're static and we're empty. We are overfull and leaden.

—We are airtight and we are missiles and all-powerful.”
― Dave Eggers, You Shall Know Our Velocity!

“Sometimes I don’t even watch the trains go past, I just listen. Sitting here in the morning, eyes closed and the hot sun orange on my eyelids, I could be anywhere. I could be in the south of Spain, at the beach; I could be in Italy, the Cinque Terre, all those pretty coloured houses and the trains ferrying the tourists back and forth. I could be back in Holkham with the screech of gulls in my ears and salt on my tongue and a ghost train passing on the rusted track half a mile away.”
― Paula Hawkins, The Girl on the Train