Sena

“And, you'll forgive me for sounding immodest, but i know that i'm good-looking. Throughout my life, both men and women have made their interest in me obvious. But I can't control any of that. It was simply the way I was born. Ultimately, it means nothing. I could have a heart of stone for all they know. I could be a psychopath or a sociopath. Not all monsters look like the Elephant Man, and not everyone who looks like the Elephant Man is a monster.”
― John Boyne, A Ladder to the Sky

“So, here you are
too foreign for home
too foreign for here.
Never enough for both.”
― Ijeoma Umebinyuo, Questions for Ada

“You know, Raymond, when you're at a party, at a dance. And it's maybe a slow dance, and you're with the person you really want to be with, and the rest of the room's supposed to vanish. But somehow it doesn't. It just doesn't. You know there's no one half as nice as the guy in your arms. And yet.... well, there are all these people everywhere else in the room. They don't leave you alone. They keep shouting and waving and doing daft things just to attract your attention. "Oi! How can you be satisfied with that?1 You can do much better! Look over here!" It's like they're shouting things like that all the time. And so it gets hopeless, you just can't dance quietly with your guy. Do you know what I mean, Raymond?”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall

“The rabbit felt dizzy. He wondered for a minute, if his head had cracked open again, if he was dreaming.
"Look, Mama," said Maggie, "look at him."
"I see him," said the woman.
She dropped the umbrella. She put her hand on the locket that hung around her neck. And Edward saw then that it was not a locket at all.
It was a watch. It was his watch.
"Edward?" said Abilene.
Yes, said Edward.
"Edward," she said again, certain this time.
Yes, said Edward, yes, yes, yes.
It's me.”
― Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane