Nona Williams

“Elected officials who believe their own political survival is more important than anything else threaten the survival of our republic, no matter what they tell themselves to justify their cowardice.”
― Liz Cheney, Oath and Honor: A Memoir and a Warning

“We look for sense and we search for patterns or a grand design in the desperate attempt to make meaning out of what frightens us the most – the possibility that there is no meaning. Bad things happen to good people. Evil prospers. Young fit men get sick and die. Children starve. Teenagers are murdered in bomb blasts at music concerts. There is no reason or divine plan. Crap things happen. End of.”
― Ruth Saberton, The Letter

“Everyone has a story they tell themselves about themselves. Even if they don’t explicitly acknowledge it, their minds are at work retelling or editing or updating a narrative that explains or excuses why they have spent their time on earth as they have.”
― Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story

“Mirror-touch synesthesia. My brain re-creates the sensory experiences of living creatures, of all people and even sometimes animals; if I see it I feel it, and for just a moment I am them, we are one and their pain or pleasure is my own. It can seem like magic and for a long time I thought it was, but really it’s not so far removed from how other brains behave: the physiological response to witnessing someone’s pain is a cringe, a recoil, a wince. We are hardwired for empathy.”
― Charlotte McConaghy, Once There Were Wolves