Vaishali • [V.L. Book Reviews]

“So I try to use old words, inherited from generation
after generation, and try to make them say new things
as if there was never love before us
on this earth, as if every day we’re not drinking
and breathing the molecules of long-dead lovers
who thought they, too, had invented love,
who felt these same tensions and betrayals
and tried to use old words to describe these hopes
and glories of the flesh and mind, and failed
as I have, to say the thing anew.

— Shaindel Beers, closing lines to “I Give You Words,” The Brief History of Time (Salt Publishing, 2009)”
― Shaindel Beers, A Brief History of Time

“I dream of a better tomorrow. One where chickens can cross the road and their motives remain unquestioned.”
― Anonymous

“Truth or dare?” I asked, voice cracking with the question. “Truth.” “Did you ever miss me, after I left?” He shook his head, the muscles of his jaw ticking, nose flaring, hands still pulling me in, closer, closer. “Only every day, Eliza,” he whispered, his brows bending together. “Every hour. Every minute. Every second you’ve been gone.”
― Kandi Steiner, The Christmas Blanket

“My mom used to always quote Woody Allen. If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. I thought I understood that when I was a little girl. I thought even more so when I was a young woman, a young wife. But now, thinking about the plans I’d made, the way those plans had fallen apart, the path life had led me on that I never would have imagined… I think I finally truly understood it. I must have been God’s favorite joke.”
― Kandi Steiner, The Christmas Blanket