Chris Vaughn told me about a book by Virginia Evans called “The Correspondent.”

I listened to this book last week.

Did I like this book?

YES.

Am I going to quote excerpts from this book now?
YES.

“I know you know this, but I want to repeat that when someone(s) treats you poorly, it is a reflection of him or herself and the misery within the heart of them. It doesn’t help a bit to hear that when you’re young, but later it will.”

“I wonder, was I always lonely? I’m not sure I’ve ever felt at home in the world, but I’m not sure that’s unique.”

“I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.”

“There are complexities of human life that cannot be boiled down to black and white.”

“It appears the matter is not one of policy, but of your caprice.”

“I thought I would need someone to find me bearable.”

“I remember always finding it odd the way people had of speaking around and around a thing rather than directly to the thing.”

“To say what people want to hear, not necessarily the truth, because most people tell you they want to hear the truth, but they do not, and if you tell the truth it will come back to bite you like a snake finding its own tail to swallow. I remember how he would say this to my brother and me and I didn’t like the way it sounded because my mother taught the opposite, that if we do not say the truth we have nothing. We are nothing.”

“He was well liked because he only ever said the things people wanted to hear.”

“I blamed you.”

“Did you read the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro? I am haunted by it.”

“I remember when you said in an email that when you find a place for yourself in the world, it feels like music.”

“I was learning what vastness is found in the hearts of men.”