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1 " Every time I saw Lacey, she'd gained five more pounds. She was turning into the kind of obese girl who does her hair like a forties pinup and wears bright red lipstick, a blue polka-dot dress with a white doily collar, colorful tattoos across her huge, smushed cleavage, as if these considerations would distract us from how fat and miserable she'd become. "
― Ottessa Moshfegh , Homesick for Another World
2 " I rarely interacted much with anyone back then who wasn't retarded. When I did, it struck me how pompous and impatient they were, always measuring their words, twisting things around. Everybody was so obsessed with being understood. It made me sick. "
3 " Sometimes Waldemar loves me too much. He thinks it is better I stay with him on Earth, rather than be happy in the other place without him. "
4 " Nothing made me happy. "
5 " I hated my boyfriend but I liked the neighborhood. "
6 " If he could have it his way, nobody would ever say anything again. The entire world would go silent. Even the clocks wouldn’t tick. All that mattered would be the beating of hearts, the widening and narrowing of pupils, the whirling of ties and loose strands of hair in the wind---nothing voluntary, nothing false. "
7 " My brain hurts and I cry all the time. I don't want to be here on Earth for one moment longer. "
8 " I tell him I wish I could stay with him, but not here, not on Earth. Earth is the wrong place for me, always was and will be until the day I die. "
9 " I hated them for not worshiping me. Had they no idea of my sacrifice? There I was, perfectly wonderful, and nobody would see that. "
10 " I still felt that the good things, the things I wanted, belonged to somebody else. "
11 " I guess I have a lot of emotion stored up. But it's nothing bad. It's love. It's just love rotting up inside of me . . . That's it . . . I have too much love, I think, and nobody to give it to. "
12 " His heart growled like a trapped animal, brooding and useless. "
13 " He was very intelligent and preoccupied with death and suffering. "
14 " He never knew what to say around her. Everything he wanted to say was 'You are beautiful' and 'I'm in love with you.' There was, in his mind, nothing else for him to say. "
15 " I loved it, or at least I thought I ought to love it—I've never been very clear on that distinction. "
16 " I'd never planned on working all my life. I'd had this fantasy that I'd get married and suddenly find a calling beyond the humiliating need to make a living. Art or charity work, babies—something like that. "
17 " It's a lonely life. "
18 " And anyway, there is no comfort here on Earth. There is pretending, there are words, but there is no peace. Nothing is good here. Nothing. Every place you go on Earth, there is more nonsense. "
19 " If you want something and can't have it, want something else. Want what you deserve. You'll probably get it. "
20 " On a good day, every small thing is enchanting. Everything is a miracle. There is no emptiness. There is no need for forgiveness or escape or medicine. I hear only the wind in the trees, and my devils hatching their sacral plans, fusing all the shattered pieces together into a blanket of ice. I have found that it's under that ice that I can feel I am just another normal person. In the dark and cold, I am at 'peace. "
