“If you aim to be something you are not, you will always fail. Aim to be you. Aim to be the truest version of you. Embrace that you-ness. Endorse it. Love it. Work hard at it. And don’t give a second thought when people mock it or ridicule it. Most gossip is envy in disguise. Keep your head down. Keep you stamina. Keep swimming.”
– Matt Haig, “the Midnight Library”

“Have you ever wondered what a stretch of time smells like… Mold and ammonia, a pinch of lavender, and a fair whack of dust, the mass disintegration of very old sheets of paper. And there’s something else, too, something underlying it all, something verging on rotten or stewed but not. It took me a while to work out what the smell was, but I think I know now. It’s the past. Thoughts and dreams, hopes and hurts, all brewed together, fermenting slowly in the fusty air, unable ever to dissipate completely.”
– Kate Morton, “the Distant Hours”