Even If It Meant That She Had Failed, She Was Glad. And If What Shed Wanted Had Been Impossible From

“Even if it meant that she had failed, she was glad. And if what she’d wanted had been impossible from the start, still there was a certain lonely comfort in the fact that she’d known it was impossible and had gone ahead and done it anyway.”

— Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

“With distaste, Harriet reflected upon how life had beaten down the adults she knew, every single grown-up. Something strangled them as they grew older, made them doubt their own powers–laziness? Habit? Their grip slackened; they stopped fighting and resigned themselves to what happened. ‘That’s Life.’ That’s what they all said. ‘That’s Life, Harriet, that’s just how it is, you’ll see.’”

— Donna Tartt, The Little Friend

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.”

—

F. Scott Fitzgerald

“And now, dear reader, the story is over. It is time for you to cross the bridge once more and return to the world you came from. This river, which is and is not the Thames, must continue flowing without you. You have haunted here long enough, and besides, you surely have rivers of your own to attend to?”

-Once Upon a River, by Diane Setterfield

𝙾𝚌𝚝𝚘𝚋𝚎𝚛 𝟺, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟷 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚣 𝙺𝚊𝚏𝚔𝚊, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟶 -𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟹