“I wish everything had this much clarity. I wish I had always lived in this body, and you could have lived here with me, and I could have told you it’s all right, it’s all going to be all right.”
— Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House
Tag: lit
What loyal son is he who, returning to his father’s people, wears a foreigner’s dress?
“The Soft-Hearted Sioux” by Zitkála-Šá (1921)
What could love, the unsolved mystery, count for in the face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being!
“The Story of An Hour” by Kate Chopin (1894)
He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal’klated to edercate him; and so he never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump.
“The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” by Mark Twain (1867)
My Friend Dahmer by John Backderf (2012)
That’s all I want—a little fuss!
“Daisy Miller: A Study” by Henry James (1879)
Even the statement that life has no meaning is, after all, a meaningful statement; there is no escape from this paradox.
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Eighth Edition – Vol. 2, Book C (2012)
Mum had deliberated about including Irene, but Irene’s zest usually depressed everybody else.
“Flight” by Linda Svendsen (1985)
A habit is as easily lost and forgotten as hope for a better shake in things.
“Massé“ by Leigh Allison Wilson (1986)
Ellen and I knew, as deep as anything we were, we wanted to leave–what? Something. Now we could call it the class we were born in.
“Three Maids’ Children” by Mona Simpson (1987)