Colton > Colton's Quotes

“The flip side of being a person who never fails at anything is that you never do anything you could fail at. You never do anything risky. There’s a certain essential lack of courage among people who seem to be good at everything.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Sometimes we’re so wrapped up in our own story that we don’t see how we’re supporting characters in someone else’s. So”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Seeing ourselves clearly is the project of a lifetime.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“What’s true? What’s false? In case you haven’t noticed, the world has pretty much given up on the old Enlightenment idea of piecing together the truth based on observed data. Reality is too complicated and scary for that. Instead, it’s way easier to ignore all data that doesn’t fit your preconceptions and believe all data that does. I believe what I believe, and you believe what you believe, and we’ll agree to disagree. It’s liberal tolerance meets dark ages denialism. It’s very hip right now.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“That, paradoxically, narrowing her concerns had made her more capable of love and generosity and empathy and, yes, even peace and justice. It was the difference between loving something out of duty—because the movement required it of you—and loving something you actually loved. Love—real, genuine, unasked-for love—made room for more of itself, it turned out. Love, when freely given, duplicates and multiplies.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Blaming his students for being uninspired was so much easier than doing the work required to inspire them.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“In the story of the blind men and the elephant, what’s usually ignored is the fact that each man’s description was correct. What Faye won’t understand and may never understand is that there is not one true self hidden by many false ones. Rather, there is one true self hidden by many other true ones. Yes, she is the meek and shy and industrious student. Yes, she is the panicky and frightened child. Yes, she is the bold and impulsive seductress. Yes, she is the wife, the mother. And many other things as well. Her belief that only one of these is true obscures the larger truth, which was ultimately the problem with the blind men and the elephant. It wasn’t that they were blind—it’s that they stopped too quickly, and so never knew there was a larger truth to grasp.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“And come to think of it, maybe this is the most important lesson the school could teach them about the American workplace: how to sit calmly at your desk and surf the internet and not go insane.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“Time heals many things because it sets us on trajectories that make the past seem impossible.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix

“She'd always parceled herself out little by little... She'd never put all of herself in one place. It felt too risky. Because her great and constant fear all these years is that if anyone ever came to know all of her-the real her, the true deep essential Faye-they would not find enough stuff there to love.”
― Nathan Hill, The Nix