🖤

Dear Diary,

"Because he was beginning to fear that man belongs neither in civilization nor nature—because we are aberrations between two states of being."

"...Once, I heard the sound of wind under water, breathed in the sea and survived."

“Love doesn’t much care whether you deserve it or not. It’s not exactly a conditional thing - or at least it shouldn’t be.”

Every person you’ve ever cared about, and every place you’ve ever loved, is one of these shells. You’re the thread that ties them together...You carry the people and places you cherish with you. Remember that and you will never be lonely, child.

“There is a difference between understanding and forgiveness. It’s possible to have one without the other.”

Helen: I am cold.

“I wonder if this mother feels the same as I do — that if we could go back and see our babies’ trusting faces lost in sleep against our breasts once more, that we would jump from our highest towers with the child clasped close so that they never knew their terrible fate. So that we could spare them all the suffering to come.”

So much blood

“But the pain, he intuits, is the only thing that keeps him breathing. Without the sadness, he has nothing left.”

“If they were schoolgirls, they’d make clover chains. Frida remembers sitting alone at recess and tying the end of one flowering weed to the head of the next. She’s never felt closer to them. A sisterhood based on shared incompetence. If this were another life, she’d take a picture now. Meryl resting her head on Beth’s shoulder. Beth crinkling her nose. In this light, no one would be able to tell that they’re losing hope. That they’re dangerous women. Women who can’t control themselves. Who don’t know the right way to love.”