#agu

We formed an impromptu circle just so we could look at each other and memorize faces. We hardly noticed the waiting officials. We hardly noticed anything but our little family whose ties weren’t loosening at all. In fact, this impending separation only seemed to be binding us together with a double overhand knot, hard to untie and unfailing. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#desperation #family #glass-girl #government #grief

In my mind, I saw a string stretching from Henry’s heart at Quiet Waters to my heart. It was taut and it vibrated with Henry’s worries and fears and I felt them all. Deeply. I felt them all. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#dating #glass-girl #henry-whitmire #laura-anderson-kurk #long-distance-relationships

Quit worrying so much about the boards and nails of your life. Focus on the stuff that lasts.” He glanced through the window toward the glowing light of the kitchen where Meg and my mom were laughing about something. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#glass-girl #henry-whitmire #laura-anderson-kurk #long-distance-relationship #love

He was taking a leap here, negotiating with a crackhead, under the table, in a dark cantina. The courage etched on his face came from loving Aidia so much he’d close his eyes and walk through fire to see her safe. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#aidia #children #crackhead #dating #drug-abuse

I recognized Meg’s swirly handwriting and crooked my index finger into the side of the envelope to rip it open. There was no letter. Just a picture. A picture of Meg holding a picture of me. The word HOME echoed through my body like a rifle shot. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#glass-girl #henry-whitmire #high-school #laura-anderson-kurk #long-distance-relationship

And what do you want?” I almost choked. “How could you even ask me that, Henry?” He sighed. “Because I’m thousands of miles away. Because I Skyped into your living room late one night and there’s a dude sitting next to you in the dark. Because Thanet tells me things. And Tennyson sent me a picture of you in a dress that looks like lingerie.” “It’s not that bad,” I said. “I didn’t say it was bad, Meg. It’s about a million miles from bad.” His voice was breaking with exasperation. “Things are crazy here, and I’m questioning everything. ↗

— Laura Anderson Kurk

#dating #glass-girl #henry-whitmire #high-school #jealousy

The love of God is a hard love. It demands total self-surrender, disdain of our human personality. And yet it alone can reconcile us to suffering and the deaths of children, it alone can justify them, since we cannot understand them, and we can only make God's will ours. ↗

— Albert Camus

#the-plague #death

Both of us victims of the same twentieth-century plague. Not the Black Death, this time; the Gray Life. ↗

— Aldous Huxley

#life #plague #death

The point of civilization is to be civilized; the purpose of action is to perpetuate society, for only in society can philosophy truly take place. ↗

— Iain Pears

#black-plague #christians #clement-vi #dream-of-scipio #gaul

[Pope] Clement waved his hands in irritation as if to dismiss the very idea. "The world is crumbling into ruin. Armies are marching. Men and women are dying everywhere, in huge numbers. Fields are abandoned and towns deserted. The wrath of the Lord is upon us and He may be intending to destroy the whole of creation. People are without leaders and direction. They want to be given a reason for this, so they can be reassured, so they will return to their prayers and their obiediences. All this is going on, and you are concerned about the safety of two Jews? ↗

— Iain Pears

#civilization #decay #end-of-the-world #genocide #god-s-wrath