Quote by Christina Stead

“Eccentricities, the perils of being too special, were reasoned and cooed from us like sucked thumbs.”

— Sylvia Plath

“These were my people: the abandoned, the unloved, the phenomenally unlucky.”

— Amy Bloom

“another of their acquaintances finds himself mesmerised by the way that he 'always had something of ... rivetting stupidity to say on any subject'.”

— Craig Brown

“Only those could maintain certainty who were themselves of great permanence – like the stars, the mountains and the sea. And they in turn…

— Sten Nadolny

“They were a bit shaken, and sometimes a little dispirited. But at least they never lived to know that everything they’d believed in was…

— George Orwell

“why they were the anal, narcissistic, self-absorbed freaks that they were,”

— Elizabeth Strout

“If the Niess were merely human, the world built on their inhumanity would fall apart. So… they made us.”

— N.K. Jemisin

“They were the Epperson sisters, and they had distinguished themselves in the minds of the Neelyites by going from reasonably normal to unquestionably insane…

— T. R. Pearson

“There we were, a small bunch of rather bright and fortunate young people, thinking ourselves somehow special and exceptional, but really very naive.”

— Fritz Leiber

“Eccentrics with unseeing eyes glided through, savouring amid so much society their own particular loneliness and private sins and sorrows.”

— Iris Murdoch

“Mortals were such fickle creatures. They called into the dark, demanded answers and attention from forces they could not comprehend, and yet when they…

— Philippa Ballantine

“They were smart and sophisticated, with an air of independence about them, and so casual about their looks and clothes and manners as to…

— Colleen Moore