Kate

“Come back to me, love. Come back.” I’m still struggling to breathe, desperately searching his eyes for answers. Explanations. “Where?” “Here,” he whispers, pressing my hands to his heart. “Home.”
― Tahereh Mafi, Imagine Me

“You want an ending," she says. "Then take my life when I am done with it. You can have my soul when I don't want it anymore."

The shadow tips his head, suddenly intrigued.

A smile - just like the smile in her drawings, askance, and full of secrets - crosses his mouth. And then he pulls her to him. A lover's embrace. he is smoke and skin, air and bone, and when his mouth presses against hers, the first thing she tastes is the turning of the seasons, the moment when dusk gives way to night. And then his kiss deepens. His teeth skim her bottom lip, and there is pain in the pleasure, followed by the copper taste of blood on her tongue.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

“Never be ashamed of your tears. Cry and everyone knows you’re alive.”
― Elif Shafak, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

“Time moves so fucking fast.

Blink, and you’re halfway through school, paralyzed by the idea that whatever you choose to do, it means choosing not to do a hundred other things, so you change your major half a dozen times before finally ending up in theology, and for a while it seems like the right path, but that’s really just a reflex to the pride on your parents’ faces, because they assume they’ve got a budding rabbi, but the truth is, you have no desire to practice, you see the holy texts as stories, sweeping epics, and the more you study, the less you believe in any of it.

Blink, and you’re twenty-four, and you travel through Europe, thinking—hoping—that the change will spark something in you, that a glimpse of the greater, grander world will bring your own into focus. And for a little while, it does. But there’s no job, no future, only an interlude, and when it’s over, your bank account is dry, and you’re not any closer to anything.

Blink, and you’re twenty-six, and you’re called into the dean’s office because he can tell that your heart’s not in it anymore, and he advises you to find another path, and he assures you that you’ll find your calling, but that’s the whole problem, you’ve never felt called to any one thing. There is no violent push in one direction, but a softer nudge a hundred different ways, and now all of them feel out of reach.

Blink and you’re twenty-eight, and everyone else is now a mile down the road, and you’re still trying to find it, and the irony is hardly lost on you that in wanting to live, to learn, to find yourself, you’ve gotten lost.”
― V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue