Robert Gowan

“Suicide isn’t just a death, it’s an accusation. It’s a violent, public declaration of loneliness. It’s a repudiation of connection. It says, “You weren’t enough to keep me here.” It sets up unresolvable dilemmas of culpability and fault: were we to blame for being insufficient, or was he to blame for finding us so? Someone had been weighed and found wanting, but who?”
― Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order

“These decisions were a heartbreaking catastrophe for Asians seeking citizenship. With pro–western European sentiment running high, the government began rescinding the naturalized citizenship of people of Asian descent who were already here. This amounted to an abandonment of people who had lived legally in the United States for most of their adult lives, as would echo a century later with immigrants crossing the southern U.S. border with Mexico.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

“The person who has the upper hand of their soul, the person who can go without, the person who does not fear change or discomfort or a reversal of fortune? This person is harder to kill and harder to defeat. They are also happier, more well-balanced, and in better shape.”
― Ryan Holiday, Discipline Is Destiny: The Power of Self-Control

“The part of “Bobby Jean” that always gets me—the part that always gets everybody—is the last verse, in which Bruce imagines Bobby Jean hearing this exact song in some motel room. It’s the most meta moment in Bruce Springsteen history, and”
― Steven Hyden, There Was Nothing You Could Do: Bruce Springsteen's “Born In The U.S.A.” and the End of the Heartland