The Catch Quotes

“Writing is what I want to do—what I always expected to find myself doing—and I’ve always taken it for granted that I’d somehow make it into a career. I’m not sure how it happens, but these days I don’t have the words. The world is burning. I feel it. I feel so demotivated, like an imposter of sorts, as though nothing I create will be real, because I am not in fact real, and as I give all daily motivation up to domestic chores and caregiving, I’m scared I might be getting farther away from anything that is only mine. Even though what I am actively doing—keeping a child alive—feels like the realest task, the only necessary task, I don’t feel real anymore. I don’t belong to me anymore. That’s it—I don’t feel mine. Every night, I say to myself, Tomorrow you’ll start. Tomorrow you’ll exist enough to trust your work; but for now someone needs me and I can’t remember to think about myself. How can a person who cannot prove themselves real produce anything of resonance, anything of note?”
― Yrsa Daley-Ward, The Catch: A Novel