“It is also then that I wish I believed in some sort of life after life, that in another universe, maybe on a small red planet where we have not legs but tails, where we paddle through the atmosphere like seals, where the air itself is sustenance, composed of trillions of molecules of protein and sugar and all one has to do is open one's mouth and inhale in order to remain alive and healthy, maybe you two are there together, floating through the climate. Or maybe he is closer still: maybe he is that gray cat that has begun to sit outside our neighbor's house, purring when I reach out my hand to it; maybe he is that new puppy I see tugging at the end of my other neighbor's leash; maybe he is that toddler I saw running through the square a few months ago, shrieking with joy, his parents huffing after him; maybe he is that flower that suddenly bloomed on the rhododendron bush I thought had died long ago; maybe he is that cloud, that wave, that rain, that mist. It isn't only that he died, or how he died; it is what he died believing. And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.”
― A Little Life
― A Little Life
“All the most terrifying ifs involve people. All the good ones do as well.”
― A Little Life
― A Little Life
“None of them really wanted to listen to someone else’s story anyway; they only wanted to tell their own.”
― A Little Life
― A Little Life
“It had always seemed to him a very plush kind of problem, a privilege, really, to consider whether life was meaningful or not.”
― A Little Life
― A Little Life
“I know my life's meaningful because" - and here he stopped, and looked shy, and was silent for a moment before he continued - " because I'm a good friend. I love my friends, and I care about them, and I think I make them happy.”
― A Little Life
― A Little Life
Gemma’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Gemma’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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