RD BK EITRWSBD

 A

Gilda, the protagonist of Emily Austin’s Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead, is a wonderfully anxious, relatable, and darkly funny narrator. Her internal monologue captures the absurdity of being alive while constantly obsessing over the fact that we won't be forever.

Here are 10 of the most poignant and characteristic quotes from the book:

---

On the Absurdity of Life and Death

1. "I am a person. I am a person who is alive. I am a person who is alive and who will eventually be dead. I am a person who is alive and who will eventually be dead and who is currently at a job interview for a position I don’t want."

2. "I feel like I’m in a room where the ceiling is slowly lowering, and everyone else is just talking about the weather."

3. "It’s hard to be a person. It’s hard to have a body and a brain and to have to move them around all day."

On Anxiety and Existential Dread

4. "I think about the fact that I am a collection of atoms that has somehow become self-aware and is now worried about whether or not it's being annoying."

5. "I wonder if other people feel like they are just pretending to be people."

6. "My anxiety is a physical weight. It sits on my chest like a cat, but a cat that wants to kill me."

On Human Connection and Faith

7. "I don’t believe in God, but I believe in the people who believe in God. I think they’re onto something, even if it’s just a way to feel less alone."

8. "Everyone is just looking for a place to put their sadness."

9. "I want to be okay. I want to be the kind of person who wakes up and thinks, I am glad to be here, instead of, Oh no, not again."

10. "Maybe the point of being alive isn't to be happy. Maybe the point is just to witness it."

---

The beauty of this book lies in how it balances that heavy existential dread with a very soft, human heart. Gilda is just trying her best to navigate a world that feels much too loud and much too permanent.

Would you like me to find a few more quotes specifically focused on Gilda’s relationship with the church, or perhaps a summary of the book’s main themes?