“You found me in a constellation.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“There is a small monster in my brain that controls my doubt.
The doubt itself is a stupid thing, without sense or feeling, blind and straining at the end of a long chain. The monster though, is smart. It's always watching, and when I am cmpletely sure of myself, it unchains the doubt and lets it run wild. even when I know it's coming, I can't stop it.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Broken people don't hide from their monsters. Broken people let themselves be eaten.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“There are monsters in the sea.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“I'm so tired. I'm tired of anxiety that twists my stomach so hard I can't move the rest of my body. Tired of constant vigilance. Tired of wanting to do something about myself, but always taking easy way out.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Maybe that’s normal. The things you care most about are the ones that leave the biggest holes.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Like life, what gives a story its meaning is the fact that it ends. Our stories have lives of their own—and its up to us to make them mean something.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“I'm not normally one to take advice from my fictional characters, but there comes a point in every girl's life where she reaches a crossroads: a night alone with her sweatpants and her favorite television show, or a party with real, live, breathing people.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Disappearing is an art form, and I am its queen.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“She drew so many monsters that she became a monster herself.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“I learned years ago that it’s okay to do this. To seek out small spaces for me, to stop and imagine myself alone. People are too much sometimes. Friends, acquaintances, enemies, strangers. It doesn’t matter; they all crowd. Even if they’re all the way across the room, they crowd. I take a moment of silence and think:
I am here. I am okay.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“I made Monstrous Sea because it's the story I wanted. I wanted a story like it, and I couldn't find one, so I created it myself.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“How can I want something so badly but become so paralyzed every time I think about taking it?”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“If you want the motivation back, you must feed it Feed it everything. Books, television, movies, paintings, stage plays, real-life experience. Sometimes feeding simply means working, working through nonmotivation, working even when you hate it.
We create art for many reasons - wealth, fame, love, admiration - but I find the one thing that produces the best results is desire. When you want the thing you're creating, the beauty of it will shine through, even if the details aren't all in order. Desire is the fuel of creators, and when we have that, motivation will come in its wake.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“I don't want to be the girl who freezes when confronted with new friends, or the outside world, or the smallest shred of intimacy. I don't want to be alone in a room all the time. I don't want to feel alone in a room all the time, even when there are other people around.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“I do have friends. Maybe they live hundreds of miles away from me, and maybe I can only talk to them through a screen, but they're still my friends. They don't just hold Monstrous Sea together. They hold me together.
Max and Emmy are the reason any of this exists.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Truth is the worst monster, because it never really goes away.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Creating art is a lonely task, which is why we introverts revel in it, but when we have fans looming over us, it becomes loneliness of a different sort. We become cage animals watched by zoo-goers, expected to perform lest the crowd grow bored or angry. It's not always bad. Sometimes we do well, and the cage feels more like a pedestal”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Monstrous Sea is mine.
I made it, not the other way around.
It's not a parasite, or an obligation, or a destiny.
It's a monster.
It's mine.
And I have a battle axe waiting for it.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“MirkerLurker: I thought the characters were the reason anyone read Monstrous Sea.
rainmaker: You mean like, shipping?
MirkerLurker: No, not shipping - shipping's great, and I do it all the time, but I mean... the characters themselves. The struggles they have to go through, and when you really love them, how much they affect you. When the characters are good, they make you care about everything else. That's why I draw them. It probably sounds dumb, but they're like real people to me. And this will probably sound worse, but sometimes I like them better than real people. I can empathize with characters. Real people are harder.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Real people don’t have concise character arcs.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Wallace: What's the point of being alive if you don't do what makes you happy? What good is a career that makes you money if you hate yourself every day you do it?”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“„Wallace.”
He looks up.
„I want to be happy,” I say.
„Me too,” he says.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Made you breakfast. Are you feeling okay? You look a little gray.” I grunt. Morning is the devil’s time.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“Nature doesn’t care if we feel so heavy we might sink into the ground and never be able to pull ourselves out again.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“My body gets excited without my permission, and it's not okay. It's out of control. I don't like out of control, but I like Wallace.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“That's what I like about the internet-that it gives you time to think about what you want to say before you say it.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“That computer is my rabbit hole; the internet is my wonderland. I am only allowed to fall into it when it doesn’t matter if I get lost.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“The things you care most about are the ones that leave the biggest holes.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“If I like a book, I devour it in one sitting, and then I forget a lot. It's fine with me, because I read them over and over again.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
Francesca Zappia
Born place: in The United States
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“...and gentle happy and peaceful, tasting the mean goodness of their living like the last of their suppers in their mouths.”
― James Agee, quote from A Death in the Family
“After a while Mary said, “Zsadist?”
“Yeah?”
“What are those markings?”
His frowned and flicked his eyes over to her, thinking, as if she didn’t know? But then . . . well, she had been a human. Maybe she didn’t. “They’re slave bands. I was . . . a slave.”
“Did it hurt when they were put on you?”
“Yes.”
“Did the same person who cut your face give them to you?”
“No, my owner’s hellren did that. My owner . . . she put the bands on me. He was the one who cut my face.”
“How long were you a slave?”
“A hundred years.”
“How did you get free?”
“Phury. Phury got me out. That’s how he lost his leg.”
“Were you hurt while you were a slave?”
Z swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“Do you still think about it?”
“Yes.” He looked down at his hands, which suddenly were in pain for some reason. Oh, right. He’d made two
fists and was squeezing them so tightly his fingers were about to snap off at the knuckles.
“Does slavery still happen?”
“No. Wrath outlawed it. As a mating gift to me and Bella.”
“What kind of slave were you?”
Zsadist shut his eyes. Ah, yes, the question he didn’t want to answer. For a while it was all he could do to force himself to stay in the chair. But then, in a falsely level voice, he said,
“I was a blood slave. I was used by a female for blood.”
The quiet after he spoke bore down on him, a tangible weight.
“Zsadist? Can I put my hand on your back?”
His head did something that was evidently a nod, because Mary’s gentle palm came down lightly on his
shoulder blade. She moved it in a slow, easy circle.
“Those are the right answers,” she said. “All of them.”
He had to blink fast as the fire in the furnace’s window became blurry. “You think?” he said hoarsely.
“No. I know.”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Father Mine
“I do not want a boy. I only want Monseigneur!”
― Georgette Heyer, quote from These Old Shades
“Something happened when you looked in the mirror together. You asked it, as always, a question, and you asked each other something too; and the space, shadowy but glossy, the further room in which you found yourself, as if on a stage, vibrated with ironies and sentimental admissions.”
― Alan Hollinghurst, quote from The Line of Beauty
“It began with a memory. Decades, and then centuries fell away leaving Lenobia young and naïve again, and in the cargo hold of the ship that had carried her from France to America—from one world to another. It was during that journey that Lenobia had met Martin, the man who should have been her Mate for his entire life. Instead he had died too young and had taken her love to the grave with him.”
― P.C. Cast, quote from Hidden
White Teeth
Under the Never Sky
The Waves
Outliers: The Story...
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