Claire Dunlea

“She closes her eyes. He probably won’t come back, she thinks. Or he will, differently. What they have now they can never have back again. But for her the pain of loneliness will be nothing to the pain that she used to feel, of being unworthy. He brought her goodness like a gift and now it belongs to her. Meanwhile his life opens out before him in all directions at once. They’ve done a lot of good for each other. Really, she thinks, really. People can really change one another.
You should go, she says. I’ll always be here. You know that.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“If God wanted me to give you up, he wouldn't have made me who I am.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You

“It's cold today, but in a spring way, and I love you.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Vera

“And isn’t death just the apocalypse in the first person?”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You