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“Not for the first time Marianne thinks cruelty does not only hurt the victim, but the perpetrator also, and maybe more deeply and more permanently. You learn nothing very profound about yourself simply by being bullied; but by bullying someone else you learn something you can never forget.”
― Normal People
― Normal People
“There was a boldness in not editing for consistency, in not ripping out either the one page or the other. To admit uncertainty is to admit weakness, to powerlessness, and to believe in yourself despite both. It is frailty, but in this frailty there is a strength: the conviction to live in your own mind, and not someone else’s. I have often wondered if the most powerful words I wrote that night came not from anger for rage, but from doubt: I don’t know, I just don’t know. Not knowing for certain, but refusing to give away to those who claim certainty, was a privilege I had never allowed myself. My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had veer occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.”
― Educated
― Educated
“I had started on a path of awareness, had perceived something elemental about my brother, my father, myself. I had discerned the ways in which we had been sculpted by a tradition given to us by others, a tradition of which we were either wilfully or accidentally ignorant. I had begun to understand that we had lent our voices to a discourse whole sole purpose was to dehumanise and brutalise others - because nurturing that discourse was easier, because retaining power always feels like the way forward.”
― Educated
― Educated
“Dire d’un tel homme qu’il n’est pas un homme, c’est lui enlever sa responsabilité, et de cette manière lui donner le quitus, il n’aurait alors rien à réparer, n’aurait aucun pardon à demander. Or même pour Dieu dans toute sa gloire, même pour Satan dans toute sa force, la gratuité n’existe pas, il leur faut mériter leur trône et le conserver, c’est nous qui les avons faits rois. Et si rien de ce que l’homme a le pouvoir de faire ne pourra plus jamais réparer, on peut au moins s’obliger cela: payer, payer sans faute. On le laisse pas de dettes derrière soi.”
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“Since realising that what a person knows about the past is limited, and will always be limited to what they are told by others. I knew what it was to have a misconception corrected - a misconception of such magnitude that shifting it shifted the world. Now I needed to understand how the great gatekeepers of history had come to terms with their own ignorance and partiality. I though I could accept that what they had written was not absolute but was the result of a biased process of conversation and revision, maybe I could reconcile myself sight he fact that the history most people agreed upon was not the history I had been taught. Dad could be wrong, and the great historians Carlyle and Macaulay and Trevelyan could be wrong, but from the ashes of their dispute I could construct a world to live in. In knowing the ground was not ground at all, I hoped I could stand on it.”
― Educated
― Educated
Juliette’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Juliette’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Juliette
Lists liked by Juliette
