Seth Greenland > Quotes

“Some would think the leader of a people should be a model of what to strive for. But maybe God knew trying to be perfect is just not healthy, or maybe God could not find any perfect human beings. Maybe it's just not possible to be perfect.”
― Seth Greenland, Shining City

“Our lives are lived with the illusion of control and then there are moments rare as wisdom when we abandon the pretense that we are masters of our fate.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“I don’t want to struggle to describe things anymore. I want to let experience happen without the filter of intellect.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“We think words bring us close to people when they’re gone but they’re a comfort, not a substitute. Words can summon a memory but absence has no cure.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“I had the urge to caress the small of her back with my fingertips. That thought was immediately tried, sentenced to ten years’ hard labor, and exiled to Siberia.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“Qualunque cosa sia non puo essere cosi male. L’amore è difficile.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“Le propriétaire. Dag n’aime pas ce mot. Dans le contexte des relations raciales en Amérique, les rapprochements sont inévitables. Au cours des négociations avec la ligue, on trouve toujours un joueur pour comparer la NBA à « une plantation », et Dag refuse en général de cautionner cette interprétation. Dans les plantations, personne n’a jamais gagné des millions de dollars pour faire la pub d’une marque de baskets. Néanmoins, force est de constater que la classe des propriétaires ressemble à un négatif des joueurs de la ligue. Il sait bien qu’il n’est pas en son pouvoir de balayer des siècles d’inégalités. Mais arracher un contrat max à Jay Gladstone, c’est autre chose. Ça, il sent qu’il en est capable”
― Seth Greenland

“There were people you cared about. Maybe not many, but there were a few and when you cared about them enough it hurt.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“That was horrifying. Fear had blinded me to this but the situation had changed. What if I were found out? Exposed. Prosecuted. Disbarred. My life would crumble. I would have no job, my prospects would be dismal, and it was impossible to know how Spaulding would react. And the only person whose opinion mattered, the only one, was Spaulding.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“The stereo played an abstract tone poem by a pianist who sounded as if he had OD’d on Nembutal five minutes before the recording session.”
― Seth Greenland, Shining City: A Novel

“I couldn’t allow myself to have what I desperately wanted which was not a partnership but for Spaulding Simonson to accompany me. I missed being with her, the sense of adventure she brought, that feeling I had of being stupidly alive when we were together. Why did I need to deprive myself?”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“I vowed to be more generous in our relationship, to consider my mother as more than the sum of her bad decisions.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story

“Regret expands. It matures. It accrues strength and mass. It is a living organism.”
― Seth Greenland, I Regret Everything: A Love Story