"...why is it, I think, while getting stoned out of my mind on Poppy's shitty vape pen, that in this life, in our simulation, in whatever terrifying meaningless thing it is we're all doing every day, we can only create infinite and infinitely worse versions of things we already have instead of good new things we need?"

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Worry by Alexandra Tanner

 

"...I fantasize about that possibility until I realize that those things only happen in fiction. Real life is much more ordinary: metro rides, evenings at the supermarket, calls to your phone company's customer service, gynecological checkups, baskets of dirty clothes that pile up in the bathroom, toothpaste tubes that are squeezed and folded to get out the last drop, unanswered messages from people you want to answer and answered messages from people you couldn't care less about, bills, loyalty cards for La Sirena frozen foods and Carrefour accumulating in your waller, dishcloths that smell damp, deep-cleaning the kitchen after a lot of frying. In real life, boredom exists, as does uneasiness and situations that lead to nothing, no character growth or plot advancement of any sort."

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Discontent by Beatriz Serrano

 

"Most of the time, you understand women—often better than they understand themselves. But every now and then, you are very, very wrong."

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Notes on an Execution by Danya Kukafka

 

"For a moment, he dissolves into the song. The turning of the world is of no consequence to him. He doesn't even feel the ground beneath his boots."

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Seascraper by Benjamin Wood

 

"I love all things, not because they are passionate or sweet-smelling but because, I don't know, because this ocean is yours, and mine"

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Odes to Common Things by Pablo Neruda

 

"My heart was not trained to love anyone but him. I could only love one person. This was my innate principle. It would disrupt the nervous system to be otherwise. It goes against nature to be otherwise. I cannot just transfer my affections, for they are carved in stone, and were decreed three billion years before this ocean rolled."

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Lives of the Saints by Nancy Lemann

 "'There's no avoiding it. Men are weak, women are strong, Fate is omnipotent.'"

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Smoke by Ivan Turgenev

 

"'Unhappiness is an invention,' I sometimes quote to myself."

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Your Face Tomorrow Volume 1: Fever and Spear by Javier Marías

 "'So you're back for more,' he mocks, not standing up to greet me.'"


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Sicily Enough by Claire Rabe

 

"We paid money to go on living in the same way that one once paid health insurance, we bought the commodity called survival, and according to all existing contracts no one has the right to take it from us or make demands upon it."

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Termush by Sven Holm

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