Lines I love vol. 2

If there’s a better way to capture the end-of-summer feeling than the first line on this list, I haven’t come across it yet. This in-between time of not really summer, but also not actually fall yet is when, among other things, we all share a common struggle each morning: How many layers do I need? Sandals for one more day? (Yes, right?)

And here we are again somehow.

Bethany Beach, where I prefer to do my summer reading.

This season’s reading list ended up being an interesting mix of new and not-as-new. A few lines I loved from them, rounded up below:

“He smelled like summer: sunscreen and exhaustion with an undercurrent of something ending.”
—Aja Gabel
from The Ensemble: A Novel

“It feels powerful to him to put an experience down in words, like he’s trapping it in a jar and it can never fully leave him.”
—Sally Rooney
from Normal People

“Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has.”
—Jeffrey Eugenides
from Middlesex

“I want to elevate a room when I walk in it, not just keep it the same as it’s always been. I want the world to be fundamentally different than the one my mom grew up in. So I refuse to get mine, so to speak, by reinforcing the patriarchy to my advantage.”
—Phoebe Robinson
from Everything’s Trash, But It’s Okay

And one more from Pheebs because, let’s be honest, she had me reach a new laughing loudly on a plane next to strangers status with her latest.

“Obvs, I’m not saying I am LeBron James, but I gotta be the LeBron James of something. Like I’m the LeBron James of Taking My Jeans Off Literally Fifteen Seconds After Arriving Home. Nailed it! And on the first try, which is a very LeBron James thing to do.”