“He had no idea that grief was a reward. That it only came to those who were loyal, to those who loved more than they were capable of. ”
― Nami Mun, quote from Miles from Nowhere
“Life's only as bad as you make it out to be. It's go nothing to do with the way it is.”
― Nami Mun, quote from Miles from Nowhere
“Hope was based on the unknown, and I liked knowing things. Like that I was going to fail. Failure had better odds. ”
― Nami Mun, quote from Miles from Nowhere
“And at the start of every new day, I still believed I could choose my own beginning, one that was scrubbed clean of everything past”
― Nami Mun, quote from Miles from Nowhere
“I knew that we'd never get there. I knew this, in the same way I knew Tati would never be a teacher, and that Benny would be the end of me. Life's about confirming what we already know. About making sure. ”
― Nami Mun, quote from Miles from Nowhere
“Don't you ever get a tattoo, understand? All is says is that you ain't open to change.”
― Nami Mun, quote from Miles from Nowhere
“I looked at Mr. McCommon, his hands smothering his face, his chest flinching. He had no idea that grief was a reward. That it only came to those who were loyal, to those who loved more than they were capable of. He had a garage, full of her belongings, and all I had was my guilt. It took on its own shape and smell and nestled in the pit of my body, and it would sleep and play and walk with me for decades to come.”
― Nami Mun, quote from Miles from Nowhere
“But these abnormal emotions feel just as valid and realistic as the genuine feelings created by undistorted thoughts, so you automatically attribute truth to them. This is why depression is such a powerful form of mental black magic.”
― David D. Burns, quote from Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
“How do you say goodbye to the person who was the single greatest influence on who you are?”
― April Brookshire, quote from Young Love Murder
“-Beatriz. Me la quedé mirando, y me enamoré de ella.
Neruda se rascó su plácida calvicie con el dorso del lápiz.
-Tan rápido.
-No, tan rápido no. Me la quedé mirando como diez minutos.”
― Antonio Skármeta, quote from The Postman
“I made a long speech in bad French in which I admitted that I was no critic, that I was always passionate and prejudiced, that I had no reverence for anything except what I liked. I told them that I was an ignoramus, which they tried to deny vigorously. I saidl would rather tell them stories. I began—about a bum who had tried to hit me up for a dime one evening as I was walking towards the Brooklyn Bridge. I explained how I had said No to the man automatically and then, after I had walked a few yards it suddenly came to me that a man had asked me for something and I ran back and spoke to him. But instead of giving him a dime or a quarter, which I could easily have done, I told him that I was broke, that I had wanted to let him know that, that was all. And the man had said to me—"do you mean that, buddy? Why, if that's the way it is, I'll be glad to give you a dime myself." And I let him give it to me, and I thanked him warmly, and walked off.
They thought it a very interesting story. So that's how it was in America? Strange country ... anything could happen there.
"Yes," I said, "a very strange country," and I thought to myself that it was wonderful not to be there any more and God willing I'd never return to it.
"And what is it about Greece that makes you like it so much?" asked someone.
I smiled. "The light and the poverty," I said.
"You're a romantic," said the man.
"Yes," I said, "I'm crazy enough to believe that the happiest man on earth is the man with the fewest needs. And I also believe that if you have light, such as you have here, all ugliness is obliterated. Since I've come to your country I know that light is holy: Greece is a holy land to me."
"But have you seen how poor the people are, how wretchedly they live?"
"I've seen worse wretchedness in America," I said. "Poverty alone doesn't make people wretched."
"You can say that because you have sufficient …."
"I can say it because I've been poor all my life," I retorted. "I'm poor now," I added. "I have just'enough to get back to Athens. When I get to Athens I'll have to think how to get more. It isn't money that sustains me—it's the faith I have in myself, in my own powers. In spirit I am a millionaire—maybe that's the best thing about America, that you believe you'll rise again."
"Yes, yes," said Tsoutsou, clapping his hands, "that's the wonderful thing about America: you don't know what defeat is." He filled the glasses again and rose to make a toast "To America!" he said, "long may it live!"
"To Henry Miller!" said another, "because he believes in himself.”
― Henry Miller, quote from The Colossus of Maroussi
“You gently leaned over her to kiss her forehead and pulled the blankets around her shoulders. No father can adequately articulate the experience of watching his sleeping child—it must be lived. Now, imagine you are walking out of her room. Could you turn around and look at her and believe that the sum of her existence rests in a mass of cells? Certainly not. But this is exactly how a rank secularist is obliged to view his daughter. She is nothing more than a genetic product of his and her mother’s DNA. The puffing of air through her tiny chest keeps her alive. Your time with her is precious, meaningful, but purely a biological phenomenon. Her thoughts and feelings can be traced to neuronal firing in her brain. One day you will die and she will die and that will be that. Life began through the splitting and rejoining of DNA and when they stopped functioning, she did too.”
― quote from Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know
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