月下美人

quotes I like from books I've read (personal archive)

[pwerpuffgrl]

[reds-poppy]

Perhaps, Samantha, you are lost in more ways than one?

Mona Awad, Bunny, 2019

[reds-poppy]

Already she had forgiven him this oversight, because what is love but an endless series of forgivenesses, of choosing what to remember and what hurts too much to hold.

Erin L. McCoy, Underlake, 2026

[reds-poppy]

I saw differently when I looked with your eyes. I walked differently when I walked with your body.

Han Kang (trans. Deborah Smith), The White Book, 2016

[reds-poppy]

There are certain memories that remain inviolate to the ravages of time. And to those of suffering. It is not true that everything is colored by time and suffering. It is not true that they bring everything to ruin.

Han Kang (trans. Deborah Smith), The White Book, 2016

[reds-poppy]

A nameless sadness, the fading away of the birds. The fading away of the animals. How lonely it will be here, when it’s just us.

Charlotte McConaghy, Migrations, 2020

[reds-poppy]

Who would wish for this—for love that burns only in the dark?

Ava Reid, Innamorata, 2026

[reds-poppy]

I cannot exorcise you from my mind. I have tried—but I think of you always. In sleeping, in waking, and especially in dreaming.

Ava Reid, Innamorata, 2026

[reds-poppy]

Does he remember it the same way I do? Cicadas in the grass and aloe on my fingertips. Ice cream melting over my knuckles, loose pebbles beneath my feet. Laughing so hard it hurt, the sky so bright above our heads I felt like I could put the stars in my pocket.

B.K. Borison, And Now, Back to You, 2026

[reds-poppy]

With my words on his tongue, and the hum of the spellsong hanging thick in the air between us, I nearly found him beautiful.

Maiga Doocy, Sorcery and Small Magics, 2024

[reds-poppy]

"Memory betrays most people ... It fades, leaving them with dull, soft impressions of a life more like a dream than history."

Christopher Ruocchio, Empire of Silence, 2018

[reds-poppy]

If it is our bodies that should one day be washed up onshore then I hope they will do so together.

Charlotte McConaghy, Wild Dark Shore, 2025

[reds-poppy]

As you did it to the strangest of my sisters you did it to me

Emily Austin, Gay Girl Prayers, "Matthew 25:40," 2024

[reds-poppy]

Read the lines on your palms. Ask the stars; ask the dead. Fortune tellers know thou shalt relish a witch to live.

Emily Austin, Gay Girl Prayers, "Exodus 22:18 & Isaiah 43:2," 2024

[reds-poppy]

Wet your hair with drops of the night crack, crack praise the monsters, meet me where the fire never goes out.

Emily Austin, Gay Girl Prayers, "Crack, Crack," 2024

[reds-poppy]

You can feel the sorrow of a thing that is gone without wanting it back, like mourning the version of yourself who was happy—for whom this was enough.

Sarah Maria Griffin, Eat the Ones You Love, 2025

[reds-poppy]

Shell would become somebody out of the shadow of her old life, she would stand tall and emit light so powerful that all colour was changed by her.

Sarah Maria Griffin, Eat the Ones You Love, 2025