Jason > Jason's Quotes

“We keep moving. And as we do, the things around us, well, they disappear.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“Heavenly witnesses are a tricky lot, to be used by whoever is closest to Heaven at the time. And legend and theology, which are designed to sanctify our fears, crimes, and aspirations, also reveal them for what they are.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“She of all people knows what compilation tapes represent.”
― Nick Hornby

“Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

“I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees. I speak for the trees for the trees have no tongues.”
― Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

“A lawyer aint a priest. Nor a doctor. Law's more vagrant than sickness or sin. We make our case. We'd be fools to say what a dozen other fools might think of it.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love.”
― Frank O'Hara, Meditations in an Emergency

“You can find meanness in the least of creatures, but when God made man the devil was at his elbow. A creature that can do anything. Make a machine. And a machine to make the machine. And evil that can run itself a thousand years, no need to tend it.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian, or, the Evening Redness in the West

“Men's memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.”
― Cormac McCarthy

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word "love" here not merely in the personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace - not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

“Whether you take a doughnut hole as blank space or as an entity unto itself is a purely metaphysical question and does not affect the taste of the doughnut one bit.”
― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

“It had been four years. Four years ago, the return home had been to take care of paperwork related to the family registry when I got married. When I thought back on it, what a pointless trip! I thought it was all paperwork. The problem was that nobody else thought it. It comes down to the different ways in which minds work. What's over for one person isn't over for another. But the path splits in two different directions, and so you end up apart.
From that point on there was no hometown for me. Nowhere to return to. What a relief! No one to want me, no one to want anything from me.”
― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

“I was feeling lonely without her, but the fact that I could feel lonely at all was consolation. Loneliness wasn't such a bad feeling. It was like the stillness of the pin oak after the little birds had flown off.”
― Haruki Murakami, A Wild Sheep Chase

“What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.”
― Haruki Murakami , South of the Border, West of the Sun

“What we seek is some kind of compensation for what we put up with.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“Life is a lot more fragile than we think. So you should treat others in a way that leaves no regrets. Fairly, and if possible, sincerely.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“I used to think the years would go by in order, that you get older one year at a time. But it's not like that. It happens overnight.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

“The sad truth is that certain types of things can't go backward. Once they start going forward, no matter what you do, they can't go back the way they were. If even one little thing goes awry, then that's how it will stay forever.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

“Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“It's a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“One of the most terrible, most mysterious things about a life is that a warning can be heeded only in retrospect: too late.”
― James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

“My progress report
concerning my journey to the palace of wisdom
is discouraging.”
― James Baldwin, Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems