Sylvia

25 books for 2025

All this, the debris of her living, somehow made her absence feel absolute and stifling. She was everywhere and nowhere at once.

"Sometimes I want to think about being good. But it doesn't choose me. It just doesn't. I'm no good at goodness."

"That's the only real thing about me, that I'm sitting here next to you at this bus stop. That's it. Everything else, what I do, what I've done, the goals and promises, they're all, like, ghosts. For most people, their ghost is inside them, waiting to float out when they die. But my ghost is in pieces." He pointed with his chin at the scattered trees. "It's all over the place, caught in all the spots where I snagged myself."

"I don't have any second chances. Just you. That's it. You're my second chance."

Hai trained his eyes on Grazina, willing her to look at him, to give him the bridge they could cross together but she wouldn't do it.

"No, I didn't outlive Stalin to be depressed." She shook her head defiantly. "You kids blame everything on feelings."

What good is beauty, any beauty, if nobody wins?

"We might be beautiful, but it doesn't matter when we're losers."

At what point does childhood sadness become adult sadness anyway?

A boy whose face she'd never seen had become the boy whose face he couldn't forget

"I wish I knew you long ago. We would've helped each other. Wouldn't we?"

"Words cast spells. You should know this as a writer. That's why it's called spelling, Labas."

"She was just a girl from long ago. No one remembers her but me."

"The reason why it's so good," she lifted her head, "is because it's a lie."

"You can't hurt me. You can never hurt me. I've been through much worse than being yelled at."

"That it has meaning when somebody dies. That it leads to something. But it doesn't." Her voice sounded buried. "The only thing that's different is that I can't stand flowers now."