Jacob

“He knows that a lot of the literary people in college see books primarily as a way of appearing cultured, It was culture as class performance, literature fetishised for its ability to take educated people on false emotional journeys, so that they might afterwards feel superior to the uneducated people whose emotional journeys they liked to read about. Even the writer himself was a good person, and even if his book really was insightful, all books were ultimately marketed as status symbols, and all writers participated to some degree in this marketing.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.”
― Sally Rooney, Normal People

“I never excelled academically, and took some pride in “not fulfilling my potential,” in part because I was terrified that if I tried my hardest, the world would learn that I didn’t actually have that much potential”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“In 1976, Stephen King published a short story, “I Know What You Need,” about the courting of a young woman. Her suitor was a young man who could read her mind but did not tell her so. He simply appeared with what she wanted at the moment, beginning with strawberry ice cream for a study break. Step by step he changed her life, making her dependent upon him by giving her what she thought she wanted at a certain moment, before she herself had a chance to reflect. Her best friend realized that something disconcerting was happening, investigated, and learned the truth: “That is not love,” she warned. “That’s rape.” The internet is a bit like this. It knows much about us, but interacts with us without revealing that this is so. It makes us unfree by arousing our worst tribal impulses and placing them at the service of unseen others.”
― Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America