Mason Carter > Quotes

“Anger, surprisingly, often follows social hierarchies. Many people easily express anger toward those who are less powerful—a waiter, a child, a junior employee—but suppress it when mistreated by someone more powerful, such as a boss, police officer, or a government body.”
― Mason Carter, Critical Thinking Unchained: From Formal Logic to Dialectics of Emancipation

“To be intellectually humble is not to live in constant doubt. Rather, it’s to live with a mind open to correction, and a heart strong enough to prioritize truth over pride.”
― Mason Carter, Critical Thinking Unchained: From Formal Logic to Dialectics of Emancipation

“I wake reaching for you,
fingers curling around nothing,
closing on air thick with absence.
You are not here, but my body does not believe it.
It still flinches at the shape of you,
at the memory of weight no longer there.
Somewhere beneath my skin,
you still exist.”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“You were a language I learned by ear,
syllables pressed into the curve of my neck,
intonations traced along my spine.
But love, I have forgotten how to conjugate us—
the past imperfect, the future conditional,
sentences unraveling into tenses
that no longer hold.”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“The air is thick, the stone is cold,
These chains are rust, these years are old.
Darkness lingers, gnaws, decays,
A hollow tomb in endless days.”
― Mason Carter, Gothic Poems to Love & Liberty: A Collection of Poems on Myths & Broken Hearts

“It should weigh nothing.
Just wood and air,
a shape meant for sitting,
a space meant for filling.
But somehow, it carries more than I do.
This chair—
your chair—
still leans slightly to the left,
still remembers the way you sat,
one leg tucked under,
hands resting lightly on the arms,
as if you were always about to leave
but never quite did.”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“Her breath, a perfume laced with midnight’s bloom,
Her skin, a canvas brushed with lunar gloom.
She lies, a mountain range of flesh and might,
And I, a pilgrim, kneel to kiss her light.
Her neck, a column where the ancients wrote,
I trace with tongue, each vein, each whispered note.”
― Mason Carter, Gothic Poems to Love & Liberty: A Collection of Poems on Myths & Broken Hearts

“Back to the dark, my cursed throne,
I bear her forth, I stand alone.
Her breath is shallow, soft and dim,
Her pulse a song—a fleeting hymn.”
― Mason Carter, Gothic Poems to Love & Liberty: A Collection of Poems on Myths & Broken Hearts

“Oh, Perseus—your glory shall wither and fall,
In the shadow of serpents, you’ll hear my call.
Your victory is hollow, your name is a lie—
For I am the storm, and I shall never die.”
― Mason Carter, Gothic Poems to Love & Liberty: A Collection of Poems on Myths & Broken Hearts

“A critical thinker is not someone who knows all the answers, but someone who keeps asking better questions.”
― Mason Carter, Critical Thinking Unchained: From Formal Logic to Dialectics of Emancipation

“The mattress has not learned you are gone.
It still bends in the shape of you,
dips where your weight once settled,”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“Then, almost as if on its own, a single tear slipped down his cheek. He wiped it away roughly, shaking his head like he could shake away everything that had just happened.
With a sigh, he flicked his cigarette away, pulled another from his pocket, and lit it with shaky fingers.
Then he lay down on the cold rooftop floor, staring up at the sky.
The stars were distant, indifferent. They had seen this story a million times before.
And they knew how it always ended.”
― Mason Carter, A Philosophy of Scars: A Story of Broken Hearts and Overthinking Minds

“I have mastered the art of vanishing
without ever leaving the room.
I sit at tables where no one saves me a seat,
where voices rise and fall like tides,
but never crash against my shore.
I nod, I smile, I speak—
but my words evaporate midair,
unanswered, unheard,
like a prayer swallowed by an empty church.”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“Emma swallowed hard. A lump formed in her throat, but she forced herself to breathe. “Why do you do that?”
Mark tilted his head. “Do what?”
Emma stepped closer, her voice trembling just slightly. “Push people away before they can leave.”
Mark smirked again, but this time, it barely reached his eyes. “Because they always leave.”
― Mason Carter, A Philosophy of Scars: A Story of Broken Hearts and Overthinking Minds

“Anger is a natural emotion. It arises when we perceive something unjust, unfair, or threatening. There is nothing inherently wrong in feeling angry. Emotions are part of being human. The real problem arises when we express anger impulsively—especially when it targets another person.”
― Mason Carter, Critical Thinking Unchained: From Formal Logic to Dialectics of Emancipation

“Critical thinking begins with clarity: knowing when we’re dealing with facts, and when we’re dealing with beliefs awaiting verification.”
― Mason Carter, Critical Thinking Unchained: From Formal Logic to Dialectics of Emancipation

“Yes,” she said. “Truth is what survives verification. Different tongues may call it different names — honesty, fidelity, justice, love — but when you strip language away, what you have left is material behavior. Action. Roots. The rest is perfume and poetry.”
― mason carter

“Drugs,” Hank clarified, as if talking about the weather. “Always high, always alone. Walks around like some tragic poet who lost his manuscript in a fire or something. He used to be something else, I heard. But now? He’s a mess.”
― Mason Carter, A Philosophy of Scars: A Story of Broken Hearts and Overthinking Minds

“He left sticky notes on mirrors: “Reminder: You are not a joke. You are the structure that allows the joke to exist.”
― Mason Carter, Entropy in Love and Other Errors: Absurdist Short Stories about Meaning, Glitches, and Goodbyes

“My mind is moving too fast. I can’t catch a single thought before it splinters into a hundred more. I pull out my phone, open my notes app, and start typing like a man possessed. Ideas. Plans. Theories. A novel I’ll never write. A new philosophy that makes perfect sense right now, but will probably look like nonsense in the morning.”
― Mason Carter, A Philosophy of Scars: A Story of Broken Hearts and Overthinking Minds

“Illegitimate hierarchies—systems that force one person to submit to another—violate cooperation and mutual aid. That’s why things like rape are unethical. It’s not just about different moral views—it’s an act of domination.”
― Mason Carter, A Philosophy of Scars: A Story of Broken Hearts and Overthinking Minds

“Think about it—what does school really teach? Memorization. Who was born when, when they died, what happened when, who is who, what is what. That’s enough to pass exams, get a degree, and land a job. But does it teach you to think?”
― Mason Carter, A Philosophy of Scars: A Story of Broken Hearts and Overthinking Minds

“To understand the truth of any object, event, or idea, we must uncover its constitutive relations—the forces, processes, and structures that made it what it is.”
― Mason Carter, Critical Thinking Unchained: From Formal Logic to Dialectics of Emancipation

“Mira nodded slowly, her cheek brushing his. “That takes us deeper, Jullian. Beneath the political structure lies something even more fundamental: the social relationship to the very materials of life. The food we eat. The soil we grow it in. The water we drink, the trees that breathe with us. Historically, these were held in common.”
― Mason Carter, Her Name is Anarchy: a novella

“I reached into my left pocket for a pack of cigarettes, drew one out, held it between my index and middle finger. I wasn’t addicted to cigarettes, but to the feeling of holding it, lighting it up, letting it burn—letting myself burn. The smoke rose, curling and twisting, as if painting her face in the air, delicate yet fleeting. Her long hair flowed with the wind in those ephemeral wisps, only to disappear before I could hold on to them. So I would take another puff, summon her back, breathe her into existence for just a moment more.”
― Mason Carter, A Philosophy of Scars: A Story of Broken Hearts and Overthinking Minds

“She stepped closer, close enough that the faint scent of coffee and something like cedar and ash clung to the air between them. Her tone was gentle, as though placing stones in a stream, guiding the water without disturbing it.”
― Mason Carter, Her Name is Anarchy: a novella

“Mira smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners. “That’s well put. Even Marx’s idea of the state ‘withering away’ still rests on centralization, on administration from above. And historically, that’s led to bureaucracy, elitism, and repression—counter-revolution in the name of revolution.”
― Mason Carter, Her Name is Anarchy: a novella

“He walked into the spotlight. The crowd cheered. He waited.
And then, with no warning, he let out a single, clear laugh.
It came out of him like a floodgate bursting. High-pitched, joyous, real. He laughed until his face crumpled, until his knees gave way, until he collapsed to the floor.
They thought it was the act.
They laughed harder.
Some stood. Some applauded.
A child shouted, “Do it again!”
But Bobo lay still.
His rubber nose squeaked against the stage floor.
His heart didn’t.
The laughter swelled like an ocean, unknowing, unrelenting. The curtain dropped.
Behind it, a small notebook fell from his jacket. It opened to a single scribbled line:
“The joke was me.”
― Mason Carter, Entropy in Love and Other Errors: Absurdist Short Stories about Meaning, Glitches, and Goodbyes

“The walls still hold your voice,
thin as dust, settled into the cracks,
soft enough that if I press my ear close,
I swear I hear you breathing.
The air is thick with almost-words,
syllables that never found a home,
sentences that collapsed before they reached my mouth.”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind

“I have written you a hundred letters,
each one folded into the quiet between breaths,
sealed with the weight of words
that never learned how to leave my mouth.”
― Mason Carter, Saltwater & Smoke: Poems of Almosts, Goodbyes, and What We Leave Behind