#fictionquotes

[elephantsay]

She waded into her dissertation first with tempered optimism, and then as the years dragged on, with increasing despair, until her research consisted primarily of scratching and sniffing at herself. . . Writing her dissertation . . . was like waking up in a doorless, windowless room without knowing how she'd gotten inside.

Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou

[onemorepagethenbed]

I might have to think this one over

Said no Kvothe ever

[elephantsay]

That night I thought about how love comes paired with failures, apologies for deficiencies. The only remedy is compassion.

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

[elephantsay]

They did not consider themselves immigrants. They never thought that far ahead and were young enough to believe none of their decisions were permanent. They saw themselves as travelers discovering new frontiers.

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

[elephantsay]

'This country doesn't know it's dying,' Mauro said as they watched the news after dinner.  'It's not the country we want, but it's the country we deserve,' Perla answered while Elena remained quiet. That much might be true, Mauro thought, but there was no law condemning a person to life in the nation of their birth. Not yet.

Infinite Country by Patricia Engel

[elephantsay]

[I]t is really remarkable that when you wake up in the morning you nearly always find everything in exactly the same place as the evening before. For when asleep and dreaming you are, apparently at least, in an essentially different state from that of wakefulness; and therefore, as that man truly said, it requires enormous presence of mind or rather quickness of wit, when opening your eyes to seize hold as it were of everything in the room at exactly the same place where you had let it go on the previous evening. That was why, he said, the moment of waking up was the riskiest moment of the day. Once that was well over without deflecting you from your orbit, you could take heart of grace for the rest of the day.

The Trial by Franz Kafka

[elephantsay]

Books loved anyone who opened them, they gave you security and friendship and didn’t ask for anything in return; they never went away, never, not even when you treated them badly.

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

[elephantsay]

'You better take advantage.' She said them words as though decisions have no consequences, when, of course, it's been easier for her. Her freckles her thin pink lips, her blond hair, the stubborn milkiness of her skin; how easy had it been for her, her whole life, to make the world a friend to her?

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward