Paula Hawkins

Life is not a paragraph, and death is no parenthesis.

some of us are made to be carrion birds

& some of us are made to be circled

—Emily Skaja, “My History As”

Only young people made assumptions, didn’t they? Some young people. They assumed you were deaf, blind, weak.

She could forget that he’d been gone for six years and she could lose herself in the fantasy that he’d just gone out to work, or to meet a friend at the pub. And eventually she’d again hear his familiar whistle out in the lane, and she’d straighten her dress and pat her hair down, and in a minute, just a minute, she’d hear his key in the door

A woman without a man or a child or a puppy to love, she’s cold, isn’t she?

Their hearts were broken, shattered forever, and no amount of love, no matter how deep, how fierce, would be enough to mend them.

We have all the money and therefore all the power. You have nothing.

The one and the many, he supposed, because there was this Carla and there was the previous Carla; it seemed as though over the course of his life, he’d known multiple Carlas and loved them all, would continue to love them in whatever incarnation they appeared.

Anticipation. Sometimes it’s the best part, because things don’t always turn out like you want them to, but at least you should be grateful, shouldn’t you

she thought she might die from the shock, at first, but then that wore off, and the grief came, and that was worse.