On the Same Page

“This story is about a lot of things, but mostly about idiots. So it needs saying from the outset that it’s always very easy to declare that other people are idiots, but only if you forget how idiotically difficult being human is.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“Did she deserve this, Asala wondered? Did Ekrem? Did Cynwrig? Did Hafiz? The engineers who had first proposed the solar harvest? The politicians who favored whichever cause lined their pockets most? Did the flag-wavers, the finger-pointers, the us-versus-thems—did any of them, for all their greed and hate and folly, deserve punishment on this scale? Punishment in general, they deserved, herself included. A slap in the face, a knife to the throat. But not a whole world. Not every world. Their crimes, even in aggregate, did not warrant extinction. Even if it was their own fault.”
― Becky Chambers, The Vela

“Because the terrible thing about becoming an adult is being forced to realize that absolutely nobody cares about us, we have to deal with everything ourselves now, find out how the whole world works. Work and pay bills, use dental floss and get to meetings on time, stand in line and fill out forms, come to grips with cables and put furniture together, change tires on the car and charge the phone and switch the coffee machine off and not forget to sign the kids up for swimming lessons. We open our eyes in the morning and life is just waiting to tip a fresh avalanche of "Don't Forget!"s and "Remember!"s over us. We don't have time to think or breathe, we just wake up and start digging through the heap, because there will be another one dumped on us tomorrow. We look around occasionally, at our place of work or at parents' meetings or out in the street, and realize with horror that everyone else seems to know exactly what they're doing. We're the only ones who have to pretend. Everyone else can afford stuff and has a handle on other stuff and enough energy to deal with even more stuff. And everyone else's children can swim.”
― Fredrik Backman, Anxious People

“It does not matter that you do not understand the reason. You are the Beloved Child of the House. Be comforted.
And I am comforted.”
― Susanna Clarke, Piranesi