“External events are neutral. They only gain positive or negative value the moment they enter our minds. It is ultimately up to us how we greet these things. It’s not always easy, sure, but there is a comfort in knowing it is possible to view any single thing in multiple ways. It also empowers us, because we aren’t at the mercy of the world we can never control, we are at the mercy of a mind we can, potentially, with effort and determination, begin to alter and expand. Our mind might make prisons, but it also gives us keys.”
― The Comfort Book
― The Comfort Book
“If we keep going in a straight line we'll get out of here. Walking one foot in front of the other, in the same direction, will always get you further than running around in circles. It's about the determination to keep walking forward.”
― The Comfort Book
― The Comfort Book
“But it is worth noting that to be good at something is not quite the same as loving it.”
― Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
― Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
“And so, just like that, in less than an hour since they were gone, Padma was no longer the quick-tempered one. Lalli was no longer the faithful partner in crime. Who they were, and what had happened to them, was already less important than what their disappearance meant to the status of the people left behind.”
― The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing
― The Good Girls: An Ordinary Killing
“As a means of motivating people to be cruel or inhumane-as a means of inciting evil, to borrow the vocabulary of the devout-there may be no more potent force than religion.”
― Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
― Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith
Tess’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Tess’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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