Izzy

“Perhaps that is why the Russians have come here, these flocks of exiles who fled the Bolshevik Revolution and even before that, when their home could no longer be a home. If you decided to run, you might as well keep running until you came to the edge of the world.
That is what this city is. The party at the end of the world.”
― Chloe Gong, These Violent Delights

“I think I wait for people to hurt me," she said quietly, "and when they do I feel a certain smugness at being right. And, after that, I just feel pain.”
― Sue Zhao

“Evil will have unleashed the fullness of itself at the point that it becomes convinced that it is not evil.”
― Craig D. Lounsbrough

“Whatever the case, it works for him. He loses a wife, and wins another quickly. He loses a fish collection, and rebuilds a bigger one. He is promoted to higher and higher offices. The awards and medals start clattering in, for teaching, for ichthyology, for contributions to higher ed. An odd alchemy of delusion right before your eyes. Little lies transmuting into bronze, silver, gold. Forget millennia of warnings to stay humble; maybe this is just how it works in a godless system. Maybe David Starr Jordan is proof that a steady dose of hubris is the best way of overcoming doomed odds.”
― Lulu Miller, Why Fish Don’t Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life