Abby

“She knew he’d be back. No matter how elaborate its charade, she recognized loneliness when she saw it. She sensed that in some strange tangential way, he needed her shade as much as she needed his. And she had learned from experience that Need was a warehouse that could accommodate a considerable amount of cruelty.”
― Arundhati Roy, The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

“But in a solitary life, there are rare moments when another soul dips near yours, as stars once a year brush the earth. Such a constellation was he to me.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“I can’t become smaller to fit into a crouching love in somebody else’s meager world. I don’t do that anymore. I have calmed down. I have consolidated. I have come through the reckoning that I required.”
― Jenny Slate, Little Weirds

“I have aged. When I look in my polished bronze mirror, there are lines upon my face. I am thickened too and my skin has begun growing loose. I cut myself with my herbs and the scars stay. Sometimes I like it. Sometimes I am vain and dissatisfied. But I do not wish myself back. Of course my flesh reaches for the earth. That is where it belongs.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe