

“I feel strong. Not strong enough to face myself, but strong enough to keep going.”
― A Million Little Pieces
― A Million Little Pieces

“And now I was lonelier, I supposed, than anyone else in the world. Even Defoe's creation, Robinson Crusoe, the prototype of the ideal solitary, could hope to meet another human being. Crusoe cheered himself by thinking that such a thing could happen any day, and it kept him going. But if any of the people now around me came near I would need to run for it and hide in mortal terror. I had to be alone, entirely alone, if I wanted to live.”
― The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45
― The Pianist: The Extraordinary Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939–45

“Many African societies divide humans into three categories: those still alive on the earth, the sasha, and the zamani. The recently departed whose time on earth overlapped with people still here are the sasha, the living-dead. They are not wholly dead, for they still live in the memories of the living, who can call them to mind, create their likeness in art, and bring them to life in anecdote. When the last person to know an ancestor dies, that ancestor leaves the sasha for the zamani, the dead. As generalised ancestors, the zamani are not forgotten but revered. Many … can be recalled by name. But they are not the living-dead. There is a difference.”
― Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
― Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong

“Our disappointment sits between us.”
― The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966
― The Roominghouse Madrigals: Early Selected Poems, 1946-1966

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
― Anna Karenina
― Anna Karenina
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