“But understanding a thing and accepting it are so very different things.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“Addie was warm and radiant next to me, making up half of us. But I - I was Eva, Eva, Eva, all the way through.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“I was terrified. I was eleven years old, and though I'd been told my entire life that it was entirely natural for the recessive soul to fade away, I didn't want to go. I wanted twenty thousand more sunrises, three thousand more hot summer days at the pool. I wanted to know what it was like to have a first kiss. The other recessives were lucky to have disappeared at four or five. They knew less.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“If you're there, Eva...if you're really there..." His fingers tightened around our shoulder, digging into our skin. "I love you, too. Always"
Then he pushed us away.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“One second. A snapshot of fear and sweat and blood.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“I was caged in our body and caged in his arms and, somehow, the former was the real prison.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“(Addie) I said. (If it had been you - if it were you trapped inside. If you were the one who couldn't move, I'd go back. I'd go back in a second.)”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“The silence was like an unwelcome child, pulling at our hair, running its fingers over our lips.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“There's only so long you can be at the zoo before it gets old.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“For years, we'd been the thorn of the neighborhood, the dirty little secret that wasn't so secret. The girls who just wouldn't settle.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“We'd been born with our souls' fingers interlocked. What if we'd never let go?”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
“I focused as hard as I could on our fingers. On curling them. On bending our elbows to prop up our body.”
― Kat Zhang, quote from What's Left of Me
Kat Zhang
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“It’s unavoidable: so long as we value money more highly than living beings and more highly than relationships, we will continue to see living beings as resources, and convert them to cash; objectifying, killing, extirpating. This is true whether we’re talking about fish, fur-bearing mammals, Indians, day-laborers, and so on. If monetary value is attached to something it will be exploited until it’s gone.”
― Derrick Jensen, quote from A Language Older Than Words
“Wallingford vaulted up from his chair. “You’ve come here so that I can mollify you and share in your belittling of Anais? Well, you’ve knocked on the wrong bloody door, Raeburn, because I will not join you in disparaging Anais. I will not! Not when I know what sort of woman she is—she is better than either of us deserves. Damn you, I know what she means to you. I know how you’ve suffered. You want her and you’re going to let a mistake ruin what you told me only months ago you would die for. Ask yourself if it is worth it. Is your pride worth all the pain you will make your heart suffer through? Christ,” Wallingford growled, “if I had a woman who was willing to overlook everything I’d done in my life,
every wrong deed I had done to her or others, I would be choking back my pride so damn fast I wouldn’t even taste it.”
Lindsay glared at Wallingford, galled by the fact his friend— the one person on earth he believed would understand his feelings—kept chastising him for his anger, which, he believed, was natural and just.
“If I had someone like Anais in my life,” Wallingford continued, blithely ignoring Lindsay’s glares, “I would ride back to Bewdley with my tail between my legs and I would do whatever I had to do in order to get her back.”
“You’re a goddamned liar! You’ve never been anything but a selfish prick!” Lindsay thundered. “What woman would you deign to lower yourself in front of? What woman could you imagine doing anything more to than fucking?”
Wallingford’s right eye twitched and Lindsay wondered if his friend would plant his large fist into his face. He was mad enough for it, Lindsay realized, but so, too, was he. He was mad, angry—all but consumed with rage, but the bluster went out of him when Wallingford spoke.
“I’ve never bothered to get to know the women I’ve been with. Perhaps if I had, I would have found one I could have loved—one I could have allowed myself to be open with. But out of the scores of women I’ve pleasured, I’ve only ever been the notorious, unfeeling and callous libertine—that is my shame.Your shame is finding that woman who would love you no matter what and letting her slip through your fingers because she is not the woman your mind made her out to be. You have found something most men only dream of. Things that I have dreamed of and coveted for myself. The angel is dead. It is time to embrace the sinner, for if you do not, I shall expect to see you in hell with me. And let me inform you, it’s a burning, lonely place that once it has its hold on you, will never let you go. Think twice before you allow pride to rule your heart.”
“What do you know about love and souls?” Lindsay growled as he stalked to the study door.
“I know that a soul is something I don’t have, and love,” Wallingford said softly before he downed the contents of his brandy, “love is like ghosts, something that everyone talks of but few have seen. You are one of the few who have seen it and sometimes I hate you for it. If I were you, I’d think twice about throwing something like that away, but of course, I’m a selfish prick and do as I damn well please.”
“You do indeed.”
Wallingford’s only response was to raise his crystal glass in a mock salute.“To hell,” he muttered,“make certain you bring your pride. It is the only thing that makes the monotony bearable.”
― Charlotte Featherstone, quote from Addicted
“want revenge. I want power. I want money. I want to be loved and not love in return.”
― Fay Weldon, quote from The Life and Loves of a She Devil
“End of Winter”
Over the still world, a bird calls
waking solitary among black boughs.
You wanted to be born; I let you be born.
When has my grief ever gotten
in the way of your pleasure?
Plunging ahead
into the dark and light at the same time
eager for sensation
as though you were some new thing, wanting
to express yourselves
all brilliance, all vivacity
never thinking
this would cost you anything,
never imagining the sound of my voice
as anything but part of you—
you won’t hear it in the other world,
not clearly again,
not in birdcall or human cry,
not the clear sound, only
persistent echoing
in all sound that means good-bye, good-bye—
the one continuous line
that binds us to each other.”
― Louise Glück, quote from The Wild Iris
“In business, there is nothing more valuable than a technical advantage your competitors don’t understand. In business, as in war, surprise is worth as much as force.”
― Paul Graham, quote from Hackers & Painters: Big Ideas from the Computer Age
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