Wedlock: it had a dull metallic sound, like an iron door clicking shut.

Margaret Atwood, The Testaments

“I guess you just have to trust your kids, trust that their innate interest in life will win out in the end, don’t you think?”

— George Saunders, Tenth of December

Science now tells us that luck is there whether you acknowledge it or not. And I'm afraid in your case I see the signs of a history of bad luck. Not even a latency so much as a full-blown case going completely ignored for lack of context.

Jonathan Lethem, Amnesia Moon

“I can only compare it to those rare moments that come when one is extremely calm and happy, or about to topple into sleep, but holding back at the last minute, while at the same time being aware that the sleep about to come will be deep, delicious and restorative. I don’t think I’m making a mistake comparing sleep to love; I don’t think I’m mistaken comparing love to a kind of dream à deux, admittedly with some little moments of individual dreaming, little games of connection and encounter, but which enable us to transform our earthly existence into an endurable moment — the only way to do so, to tell the truth.”

— Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin

Folks think a lifetime is a thing stretched out over years. It ain't. It can happen quick as a match in a dark room.

Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues

“It’s such a confidence trick, writing a novel. The main person you have to trick into confidence is yourself. This is hard to do alone.”

— Zadie Smith, Changing My Mind

At one time people conveniently ‘went mad’ and were never heard from again. Like a character in a romantic novel. But now... you are too hip to yourself on a psychological level. You are all too intimate with too many of the symptoms of insanity to be caught completely off your guard. Another thing: all of you have a talent for releasing frustration through clever fantasy.

Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

“In a real war no one knew which side he was on, and there were no flags or commentators or winners. In a real war there were no enemies.”

— J. G. Ballard, Empire of the Sun

The parts of life that are suffocating are so often the parts that are the projection of our parents’ own desires.

Rachel Cusk, Outline

“Side by side with the human race there runs another race of beings, the inhuman ones, the race of artists who, goaded by unknown impulses, take the lifeless mass of humanity and by the fever and ferment with which they imbue it turn this soggy dough into bread and the bread into wine and the wine into song.”

— Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer

The zero point of death has begun to shrink behind them, nobody can live with intense emotions for very long, it’s too exhausting, and everything that can be described can also be made harmless.

Damon Galgut, The Promise

“And finally, I bless my daughters, who are yet unborn. I pray that, if life tests them — as sooner or later life is bound to do — they’ll be able to stand steadfast and think carefully, using their hearts as well as their heads, understanding when they need to compromise, and knowing when they must not.”

— Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, The Forest of Enchantments

My life has been the polar opposite of safe, but I am proud of it and so is my son, and that is good enough for me. I would do it all over again without changing the beat, although I have never recommended it to others. That would be cruel and irresponsible and wrong, I think, and I am none of those things.

Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear

“But this was true only for the duration of one of these seemingly durationless periods; figure and ground could be reversed, and when one was in the midst of some new intensity, kiss or concussion, one was suddenly composed exclusively of such moments, burning always with this hard, gemlike flame.”

— Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station

She thought how for years onstage she had used the image of walking up the dirt road holding her father's hand, the snow-covered fields spread around them, the woods in the distance, joy spilling through her — how she had used this scene to have tears immediately come to her eyes, for the happiness of it, and the loss of it. And now she wondered if it had even happened, if the road had ever been narrow and dirt, if her father had ever held her hand and said that his family was the most important thing to him.

Elizabeth Strout, Anything is Possible

“Peace of mind produces right values, right values produce right thoughts. Right thoughts produce right actions and right actions produce work which will be a material reflection for others to see of the serenity at the center of it all.”

— Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.

Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore