Beholder

People look into mirrors with such unguarded curiosity, never thinking that someone else is looking back.

We cannot run from what reflects us. The farther you run from a mirror, the deeper your reflection vanishes into it.

This book isn’t dedicated to you, Susan, but I know you’ll read it one day. So I just wanted to let you know you still owe me the rest of my security deposit. Hope those books of yours are going well!

Were you always no one? Were you assigned no one at birth, or is this a recent transition into anonymity?

If you feel unseen, I see you, and if you feel lost, I’m looking.

You learned in science class once that all things shine. The color of something has to do with the kind of light it absorbs, and the kind it reflects. Red apples aren’t red, they just reflect the red that you see. And so the sky isn’t blue, and clouds aren’t white, and the color of anything is actually the color it won’t accept, because that’s what it’s giving to you.

wish someone would peer into the chaos of my interior and pull me into peaceful composition.

It's rude to be late to a party, but it's just as bad to be early.

You can only see backward because that’s all you can imagine,” she says, an edge of reprimand in her voice. “Grief is love for a past that is over, a present that has changed, and a future that will never arrive. I’m afraid your heart was wounded too young. It yearns to collect the pieces of the past because it cannot face the present. And for a heart like that, what use is the future? You cannot see forward because you cannot look forward.

Everything you see is an illusion. Everything is made of light. It bounces off the world and shines into you, where you make it make sense.

The color of something has to do with the kind of light it absorbs, and the kind it reflects. Red apples aren’t red, they just reflect the red that you see. And so the sky isn’t blue, and clouds aren’t white, and the color of anything is actually the color it won’t accept, because that’s what it’s giving to you.

I'm a good listener, they always tell me, which is true. But the actual truth is that I know if I ask people about themselves, they're less likely to ask about me

I wish someone would peer into the chaos of my interior and pull me into peaceful composition. It's no wonder the rich enjoy life; they get to live it in such beautiful spaces

Look, babe, I’m not that kind of gay. I’m pansexual. We don’t know shit about jackets.” “That’s reductive,” Dom quips. “It’s a bomber jacket, for your pansexual information.” “I’ll let the other pansexuals know.

you realize how much time eats away at what used to love us. They

Just because I don’t run at everything doesn’t mean I’m running away. I’m just picky about what gets me to rush.

Athanasios. My name means “immortal” in Greek, but it might as well mean “survivor’s guilt.

Our world is an artful illusion—of light, color, and sound. It feels spontaneous when you’re in it, but it isn’t. Beneath it all, or above it all, there’s something both significant and unknowable. A design. A sequence that can be maneuvered within, but never escaped.

We mustn’t light our way with the flame of fear. It’ll make the shadows of even small things into impossible monsters.