CT > CT's Quotes

“Patriotism is the belief that not all human lives are worth the same.”
― Tao Lin, Eeeee Eee Eeee

“Was this for real? Andrew had forgotten how to be happy! He suspected that it involved unwarranted feelings of fondness for other people, too much self-esteem, a sort of long-term delusion that manifested as charisma, and a blocking out of certain things, like lonely people, depressed people, desperate people, homeless people, people you've hurt, people you like who don't like you, politics, the nature of being and existence, the continent of Africa, the meat industry, McDonald's, MTV, Hollywood, and most or all of human history, especially anything having to do with the Western Hemisphere between 1400 and 1900, plus or minus 200 years -- but he wasn't sure. Why did it involve so many things? Maybe it was just too hard.”
― Tao Lin, Eeeee Eee Eeee

“...we take comfort in the symmetries we find in life because they suggest a design where there is none.”
― Nicole Krauss, Great House

“What if you knew, now, that you wouldn't leave anything behind. That you couldn't leave anything behind. That no one will remember you, and no one will have anything to remember you by. That you are, in fact, just someone who was there, and that's it.”
― David Whitehouse

“...I told the taxi driver the story of what happened the last time we went to the airport. They both laughed, reminding me that I could talk when I was in the mood. My obstacles were often my own.”
― David Whitehouse, Bed

“Time had erased me a little, rubbed me out. I had faded like a photograph buried under soil. I was tanned and older, weathered and experienced and fat. I was what we all become, a by-product of the torture of ourselves.”
― David Whitehouse, Bed

“The ecstasy of seeing her versus the agony of losing her, a million births and a million deaths.”
― David Whitehouse, Bed

“She nods, not meeting his gaze, and steps out into the evening. It is raining, of course. The umbrella now does what its owner has never been able to manage, and Miss Dark goes home.”
― Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

“About a week after they had come back, a load of mail came to the island. They were the first letters the men had received in several weeks, and for a night it relieved the changeless pattern of their lives. One of the infrequent rations of beer was given out the same night, and the men finished their three cans quickly, and sat about without saying very much. The beer had been far too inadequate to make them drunk; it made them only moody and reflective, it opened the gate to all their memories, and left them sad, hungering for things they could not name.”
― Norman Mailer, The Naked and the Dead

“Existence was not only absurd, it was plain hard work. Think of how many times you put on your underwear in a lifetime. It was appalling, it was disgusting, it was stupid.”
― Charles Bukowski, Pulp: Charles Bukowski's Final Hardboiled Noir Comedy – Lady Death, Aliens, and the Absurd

“The world is almost peaceful when you stop trying to understand it.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

“And I think about all the things we could be
if we were never told our bodies were not built for them.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, The Poet X

“Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you're there.

It doesn't matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that's like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn-cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“Not responding is a response - we are equally responsible for what we don't do.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“The worst it got was near the end. A lot of people died right at the end, and I didn't know if I could make it another day. A farmer, a Russian, God bless him, he saw my condition, and he went into his house and came out with a piece of meat for me."
"He saved your life."
"I didn't eat it."
"You didn't eat it?"
"It was pork. I wouldn't eat pork."
"Why?"
"What do you mean why?"
"What, because it wasn't kosher?"
"Of course."
"But not even to save your life?"
"If nothing matters, there's nothing to save.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Eating Animals

“People care about animals. I believe that. They just don’t want to know or to pay. A fourth of all chickens have stress fractures. It’s wrong. They’re packed body to body, and can’t escape their waste, and never see the sun. Their nails grow around the bars of their cages. It’s wrong. They feel their slaughters. It’s wrong, and people know it’s wrong. They don’t have to be convinced. They just have to act differently. I’m not better than anyone, and I’m not trying to convince people to live by my standards of what’s right. I’m trying to convince them to live by their own.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer

“Decide in your heart of hearts what really excites and challenges you, and start moving your life in that direction. Every decision you make, from what you eat to what you do with your time tonight, turns you into who you are tomorrow, and the day after that. Look at who you want to be, and start sculpting yourself into that person. You may not get exactly where you thought you'd be, but you will be doing things that suit you in a profession you believe in. Don't let life randomly kick you into the adult you don't want to become.”
― Chris Hadfield

“When I was a boy my grandfather died, and he was a sculptor. He was also a very kind man who had a lot of love to give the world, and he helped clean up the slum in our town; and he made toys for us and he did a million things in his lifetime; he was always busy with his hands. And when he died, I suddenly realized I wasn’t crying for him at all, but for all the things he did. I cried because he would never do them again, he would never carve another piece of wood or help us raise doves and pigeons in the back yard or play the violin the way he did, or tell us jokes the way he did. He was part of us and when he died, all the actions stopped dead and there was no one to do them just the way he did. He was individual. He was an important man. I’ve never gotten over his death. Often I think, what wonderful carvings never came to birth because he died. How many jokes are missing from the world, and how many homing pigeons untouched by his hands. He shaped the world. He did things to the world. The world was bankrupted of ten million fine actions the night he passed on.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.”
― Eric Hoffer

“You are precisely as big as what you love and precisely as small as what you allow to annoy you.”
― Robert Anton Wilson

“You begin to string words together like beads to tell a story. You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“It’s easy to be close, but almost impossible to stay close. Think about friends. Think about hobbies. Even ideas. They’re close to us—sometimes so close we think they are part of us—and then, at some point, they aren’t close anymore. They go away. Only one thing can keep something close over time: holding it there. Grappling with it. Wrestling it to the ground, as Jacob did with the angel, and refusing to let go. What we don’t wrestle we let go of. Love isn’t the absence of struggle. Love is struggle.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

“I've raised my voice at a human only twice in my entire life. Both times at the same human. Put differently: I've known only one human in my entire life. Put differently: I've allowed only one human to know me.”
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Here I Am

“If we are going to spend the bulk of our public dollars on the affluent — at least when it comes to housing — we should own up to that decision and stop repeating the politicians' canard about one of the richest countries on the planet being unable to afford doing more. If poverty persists in America, it is not for lack of resources.”
― Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

“Arleen’s children did not always have a home. They did not always have food. Arleen was not always able to offer them stability; stability cost too much. She was not always able to protect them from dangerous streets; those streets were her streets. Arleen sacrificed for her boys, fed them as best she could, clothed them with what she had. But when they wanted more than she could give, she had ways, some subtle, others not, of telling them they didn’t deserve it.”
― Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

“You took care of people by not letting them know how badly you wanted your life to be different.”
― Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here

“He looked up at the empty clouds, and as he died he wondered, not for the first time but for the very last, why it should be that we are made for a bright world, but live in a dark one.”
― Lev Grossman, The Bright Sword

“This for me is the defining argument for diversity: Diversity is the best way to defend equality. If people from diverse groups are not making decisions, the burdens and benefits of society will be divided unequally and unfairly—with the people writing the rules ensuring themselves a greater share of the benefits and a lesser share of the burdens of any society. If you’re not brought in, you get sold out. Your life will be worth twenty shekels. No group should have to trust another to protect their interests; all should be able to speak for themselves. That’s why we have to include everyone in the decisions that shape our cultures because even the best of us are blinded by our own interests. If you care about equality, you have to embrace diversity....”
― Melinda French Gates, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World

“Conversation accelerates change when the people who are talking to each other are getting better—and I don’t mean human beings getting better at science and technology; I mean human beings getting better at being human. The gains in rights for women, for people of color, for the LGBTQ community, and for other groups that have historically faced discrimination are signs of human progress. And the starting point for that human improvement is empathy. Everything flows from that. Empathy allows for listening and listening leads to understanding. That’s how we gain a common base of knowledge. When people can’t agree, it’s often because there is no empathy, no sense of shared experience. If you feel what others feel, you’re more likely to see what they see. Then you can understand one another. Then you can move to the honest and respectful exchange of ideas that is the mark of a successful partnership. That’s the source of partnership.”
― Melinda French Gates, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World