""I'd stayed with John because there was something different about him, calm and still, like a mountain. I’d long assumed that the stillness was a commitment to being an artist, a safety barrier between him and the conventional world. His energy was calm, and it had calmed me. But it wasn’t the stillness of wisdom. It was the absence of empathy."
Finished reading on 30.01.26
"— Acabou, Chico Coveiro. Não nasci pra final feliz.
— Final, final mesmo, Samuel, é só quando eu baixar teu caixão na cova. Ainda dá
tempo.
— Tu sonha muito, Chico.
— Foi a morte que me ensinou. O tempo de sonhar é em cima da terra."
Finished reading on 04.01.26
"Animal eyes gleaming wild, presence of blood, unearthed skull, again those eyes. Rising up from the pit of my stomach. Shuddering awake, my hands, need to see my hands. Breathe. My fingernails still soft, my teeth still gentle. Can only trust my breasts now. I like my breasts, nothing can be killed by them. Hand, foot, tongue, gaze, all weapons from which nothing is safe. But not my breasts. With my round breasts, I’m okay. Still okay. So why do they keep on shrinking? Not even round anymore. Why? Why am I changing like this? Why are my edges all sharpening—what I am going to gouge?"
Finished reading on 03.01.26
"The things she wanted the baby to know seemed small, so small. How it felt to go to a grocery store on vacation; to wake at three a.m. and run your whole life through your fingertips; first library card; new lipstick; a toe going numb for two months because you wore borrowed shoes to a friend’s wedding; Thursday; October; “She’s Like the Wind” in a dentist’s office; driver’s license picture where you look like a killer; getting your bathing suit back on after you go to the bathroom; touching a cymbal for sound and then touching it again for silence; playing house in the refrigerator box; letting a match burn down to the fingerprints; one hand in the Scrabble bag and then I I I O U E A; eyes racing to the end of Villette (skip the parts about the crétin, sweetheart); hamburger wrappers on a road trip; the twist of a heavy red apple in an orchard; word on the tip of the tongue; the portal, but just for a minute."
Finished reading on 01.01.26
"She looked as happy as happy can be as she started laying into him. So that was it: now that she thinks he’s “one of us” she can lecture him. She’s far happier thinking her sister is normal, even if she has a lot of problems, than she is having an abnormal sister for whom everything is fine. For her, normality—however messy—is far more comprehensible."
Finished reading on 26.12.25
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.”
Finished reading on 26.12.25
"She was our 'grownup' friend, the one who took care of us when we went out and let us use her place to smoke weed and meet up with boys. But we wanted her ruined, helpless, destroyed."
Finished reading on 22.12.25
"Once this thought arrives, it stays. It sticks. It lingers. It’s always there. Always. Jake once said, ‘Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can’t fake a thought.'"
Finished reading on 31.10.2025. ✿
"There's joy in simplicity, and a peaceful village life of fishing, planting trees, and chatting with neighbors is just...nice. Our real lives are full of obligations, deadlines and decisions, but Animal Crossing requires nothing of you. It's a slow-paced world where it's easy to take your time existing."
Finished reading on 10.08.2025. ❀ Thanks Bipe for the gift!
"There is a precedence for this idea of "copying towards innovation" in the pedagogy of traditional Japanese arts. In flower arrangement and martial arts, students learn the basics by imitating the kata, a single authoritative "form." Pupils must first protect the kata, but after many years of study, they break from tradition and then separate to make their own kata—a system described in the term shu-ha-ri ("protecting, breaking, and separating"). This model fits the development of Japanese fashion after World War II."
Finished reading on 10.03.2025. Thanks Rody for the gift. ʚ♡ɞ
"Shattered lands, shattered peoples, shattered empires, and shattered dreams have been one of the central stories of our times. Certainly, there is much to be learned from the world as viewed through the eyes of the defeated - not only about misery, disorientation, cynicism, and resentment, but also about hope, resilience, visions, and dreams."
Finished reading on 12.02.2025.
"Wait", said Valentine. "Listen. 'You ask: what makes man great?'" he quoted. "'Is it that he re-created nature? That he harnessed forces of almost-cosmic proportions? That in a brief time he has conquered the planet and opened a window onto the universe? No! It is that despite all this, he has survived, and intends to continue doing so."
Finished reading on 08.01.2025.
"An inherently moist child, always clammy, the scent of him vaguely fungal. The vacancy of his face when he became absorbed in some pleasure. The utter shamelessness of his greed. The sense of utter entitlement. How long it took us to teach him even a perfunctory thank-you. And he never meant it, and she did not mind. She would — never minded. She was his servant."
"And Franklin, I know you feel otherwise, but Kevin does not amaze me. I am amazed when I drop a glove in the street and a teenager runs two blocks to return it. I am amazed when a checkout girl flashes me a wide smile with my change, though my own face had been a mask of expedience. Lost wallets posted to their owners, strangers who furnish meticulous directions, neighbors who water each other’s houseplants—these things amaze me. Celia amazed me."
"It’s not just us keeping them apart. It’s everyone in Besźel and everyone in Ul Qoma. Every minute, every day. We’re only the last ditch: it’s everyone in the cities who does most of the work. It works because you don’t blink. That’s why unseeing and unsensing are so vital. No one can admit it doesn’t work.”
"Who could’ve known? All the good people in the world came together. Teachers, writers, migrant workers squatting in the trenches… young soldiers abandoned their battalions. What beautiful songs they sing! It seems to them that brave children are the favourites of history, as they wave white flags with a crown of silver horns. And then, they lose."
"Such flawless features, such dazzling eyes. So sharp with the snap of intelligence yet so warm and alive with the sap of life. Like the wise old you seemed to me even though you are still so remarkably young. Some people reflect light, some deflect it, you by some miracle, seem to collect it. Even after we went inside and left the blunt sun to the lawn, the shadows of the rec room could do nothing to dull your shimmer."
"You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do."