I keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them.
VERONICA ROTHI keep finding myself stifled by the company of others and then crippled by loneliness when I leave them.
VERONICA ROTHI traded cowardice for cruelty; I traded weakness for ferocity.
VERONICA ROTHBut when a book comes out, it’s just hundreds of opinions and you have to learn to separate out the ones you want to listen to or figure out many you want to listen to.
VERONICA ROTHTo me, when someone wrongs you, you both share the burden of that wrongdoing—the pain of it weighs on both of you. Forgiveness, then, means choosing to bear the full weight all by yourself.
VERONICA ROTHWhen you’re a writer, you hear your internal critic, and that’s really hard to get over. And then sometimes you hear critiques from classmates and stuff.
VERONICA ROTHSometimes crying or laughing are the only options left, and laughing feels better right now.
VERONICA ROTHI also don’t believe that whatever comes after life depends on my correctly reciting a list of my transgressions…I don’t believe that what comes after depends on anything I do at all.
VERONICA ROTHBecause even a sliver of distance between us is infuriating.
VERONICA ROTHEvery faction conditions its members to think and act a certain way. And most people do it. For most people, it’s not hard to learn, to find a pattern of thought that works and stay that way. But our minds move in a dozen different directions.
VERONICA ROTHIt’s strange how time can make a place shrink, make its strangeness ordinary.
VERONICA ROTHResisting is worth doing.
VERONICA ROTHI think they’re going to force us to eat lots of cake and then take an unreasonably long nap.
VERONICA ROTHI know exactly how we fit together, his arm around my waist, my hands on his chest, the pressure of his lips on mine. We have each other memorized.
VERONICA ROTHBut now, I am also learning this: we can be mended. We mend each other.
VERONICA ROTHThat’s what love does. When it’s right, it makes you more than you were, more than you thought you could be.
VERONICA ROTHLooking him in the eye is a challenge. It’s my choice.
VERONICA ROTH