#mel

While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me. ↗

— Raquel Cepeda

#foreign #freedom #freedom-of-choice #freedom-of-thought #home

I didn't know you had a girlfriend, Griggs." Anson Choi feigns surprise. "What's her name?" "I didn't actually catch her name," Griggs continues. "Lily," Raffaela says over her shoulder and this time I give her a sideways look. "Great to know that I'm in love with a girl with a cool name." "It's Taylor's middle name," Raffaela calls back again. ↗

— Melina Marchetta

#melina-marchetta #on-the-jellicoe-road #romance #humor

Don't harsh the mellow. ↗

— Tymber Dalton

#mellow #humor

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a large ego must be in want of a woman to cut him down to size ↗

— Melissa Nathan

#melissa-nathan #paraphrased #pride-and-prejudice #humor

No fiction, no myths, no lies, no tangled webs - this is how Irie imagined her homeland. Because homeland is one of the magical fantasy words like unicorn and soul and infinity that have now passed into language. ↗

— Zadie Smith

#imaginary-things #immigrants #immigration #imagination

But why is it that if you imagine a baby who smells of milk, for example, you can't help smiling? Why is there such an agreement around the world about what is or isn't a foul smell? Who decided what smells bad? Is it impossible that somewhere in this world there are people who, if they sat next to a homeless fellow they'd get the urge to snuggle up to him, but if they sat next to a baby they'd get an urge to kill it? ↗

— Ryū Murakami

#homeless-people #life #people #smells #imagination

To have reservations is to show true leadership. To have certainty without question, to lead people to battle with no qualms, or to prosecute without hesitation are qualities of a tyrant. ↗

— Laura Kreitzer

#battle #fantasy #fiction #kreitzer #leadership

Sick and disoriented, I'm able to form only one thought: Peeta Mellark just saved my life. ↗

— Suzanne Collins

#katniss-everdeen #peeta-mellark #life

I was always an unusual girl. My mother told me I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean. ↗

— Lana Del Rey

#chameleon #elizabeth-woolridge-grant #life #lyrics #moral-compass

I wanted to pull away, remind him that I was a big girl, a highly trained operative, a spy - that I'd been training for this mission my entire life, and I wasn't going to be left on the sidelines. But in the dim space with Zach pressed tightly against me, only one thought came to mind. I kissed him - longer and deeper than I ever had before. The school was not watching us this time. There was nothing playful in the tone. We were just two people kissing as if for the first time, as if it might be the last. And then I broke away. "So," I asked, as if I got kissed like that all the time (which, believe me, I don't), "where is it you're taking me again?" "The tombs. ↗

— Ally Carter

#blackthorne #cam #cameron #cameron-morgan #cammie