Aniah Roussanaly

“It seemed my whole
life was composed of these disjointed
fractions of time, hanging around in one
public place and then another, as if I were
waiting for trains that never came. And, like
one of those ghosts who are said to linger
around depots late at night, asking
passersby for the timetable of the Midnight
Express that derailed twenty years before, I
wandered from light to light until that
dreaded hour when all the doors closed and,
stepping from the world of warmth and
people and conversation overheard, I felt
the old familiar cold twist through my bones
again and then it was all forgotten, the
warmth, the lights; I had never been warm
in my life, ever.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I thought she was going to say, because I don't love you, which probably would have been more or less the truth, but instead, to my surprise, she said: "Because I love Henry."
"Henry's dead."
"I can't help it. I still love him."
"I loved him, too," I said.
For just a moment, I thought I felt her waver. But then she looked away.
"I know you did," she said. "But it's not enough.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.
"Are you happy here?" I said at last.
He considered this for a moment. "Not particularly," he said.
"But you're not very happy where you are, either.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History

“Sometimes, when there’s been an accident and reality is too sudden and strange to comprehend, the surreal will take over. Action slows to a dreamlike glide, frame by frame; the motion of a hand, a sentence spoken, fills an eternity.”
― Donna Tartt, The Secret History