Nicholas Binge > Quotes

“He smiled and stood up. “Because that’s what life is. A constant climb. Eternal growth. The continual battle against entropy. It doesn’t matter what the destination is, or what’s at the top; all that matters is that you keep climbing. That’s what it means to be alive, Harold. That’s what it means to be human.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“Whatever is going to happen, it’s going to happen. It’s already happened. It’s happening right now. It’s up to you to decide how you make that count. How beautiful you let that be.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“People like to think empathy means being able to imagine how you'd feel in a certain situation,' she said, head tilted, holding my gaze. 'But it really doesn't. It means being able to imagine how they'd feel, and how it might be completely different from you.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“I wish there was a word for things that you do not because you want to do them but because you want to be the sort of person that wants to do them.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“The Japanese have a word, yūgen, for when one becomes aware of the immensity of the universe. It is, in part, a feeling of total insignificance and abject humility. A realization of how tiny one really is. But only in part, for it also intersects with a sensation of perfect peace and pure balance, a sudden understanding of one’s place in the harmony of the cosmos.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“There’s something that runs deeper than that – biological instinct, perhaps, that won’t let you go through with mutilating yourself.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“Might as well have a stone teach a sponge how to be absorbent”
― Nicholas Binge, Dissolution

“It occurs to me that at some point, you pick up your child for the very last time. And you don’t know. At the time, you don’t know that it’s the last time you’ll ever do it.”
― Nicholas Binge, Dissolution: A Novel

“Endings don't announce themselves. They sneak around you; they shuffle their way past unnoticed until, on some cloudy day, you look out on an empty street and realize everything ended some time ago.”
― Nicholas Binge, Dissolution

“Progress is never easy, but it is necessary.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“Christ, I hope so. Nothing worse than working with people who aren’t your friends.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“The human heart is a heavy thing, and if one is forced to carry it alone it becomes heavier, weighing down further and further upon itself. Only by splitting it with another, sharing, like the proverbial breaking of the bread, can it be allowed to purify.”
― Nicholas Binge, Professor Everywhere

“Even though I missed her every day, and it brought me pain, I remembered her every day. You can’t just pretend the past doesn’t exist and move on. There are no new beginnings, Harry. They carry all the old ones with them. The only way to live in the present is to embrace the past, to use it as a seed to grow the future.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“God doesn’t care if you believe in Him or not. Or if you love Him. It doesn’t change the fact that when we are at our most holy, when we exhibit dignity and humility, when we are closest to God’s image—that is when we feel our most human.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“Nobody spoke. Words felt insufficient, out of place. In the face of its magnitude, simile and metaphor felt ridiculous.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“It’s like a seed—it carries the past inside of it. Through it, our memories are allowed to grow and flourish. It’s how we remember who we are: culturally, individually, spiritually. Through ritual.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“What we have is will. The will to act. It's what makes us human. If we give up when things get tough, then we're just dumb animals scrambling around in the mud.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“It’s not reliving, it’s . . . ritual. How can I put it? These days, particularly here, we’re always encouraged to try new things. To be innovative, to be inventive. Novelty has inherent value. How I grew up, it was different. In Japan, to be a master craftsman is not to try anything new. It is to pick one thing and perfect it. There are chefs who devote an entire lifetime to making one specific type of sushi. Blacksmiths who make only one knife, over and over and over again, seeking impossible perfection. Everyone here is obsessed with moving on, with the new. They forget about their connection to the past. This . . .” She pointed at the netsuke. “It’s like a seed—it carries the past inside of it. Through it, our memories are allowed to grow and flourish. It’s how we remember who we are: culturally, individually, spiritually. Through ritual.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“You can't just pretend the past doesn't exist and move on. There are no new beginnings, Harry. They carry all the old ones with them. The only way to live in the present is to embrace the past, to use it as a seed to grow the future.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“Not everything here is as it seems.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“That I would never forget this moment. That it would stick with me forever. But time passed and the moment drifted into obscurity like all moments eventually do. I know. It feels like this will haunt you forever. But it won’t. Things never do.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“You don’t forgive people because they deserve it, Harry,” she said. I turned back—a half turn. A look. “That’s not what forgiveness is for. You forgive people because they need it. You need it.”
― Nicholas Binge, Ascension

“Apeiron is the idea that before us, before people and things and gods and humans, there existed something else. A boundless reality, eternal and infinite, out of which all is generated and all is destroyed.”
― Nicholas Binge, Dissolution

“gun?” I blinked. “Is that legal?” “Of course it’s not legal. This isn’t America.”
― Nicholas Binge, Professor Everywhere

“When you tread the unknown, you are forced to grow,” he said. “Growth is painful, but it is the only way to advance, to become more than you were before.”
― Nicholas Binge, Professor Everywhere

“the search for meaning is more important than the meaning itself. As long as we’re constantly striving for it, that’s what brings us happiness.”
― Nicholas Binge, Professor Everywhere