“The mind is the only thing about human beings that’s worth anything. Why does it have to be tied to a bag of skin, blood, hair, meat, bones and tubes? No wonder people can’t get anything done, stuck for life with a parasite that has to be stuffed with food and protected from weather and germs all the time. And the fool thing wears out anyway—no matter how much you stuff and protect it! —Kurt Vonnegut Jr.”
― Ready Player Two
― Ready Player Two
“That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.”
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.”
― A Man Called Ove
― A Man Called Ove
“I've always tried to make a home for myself, but I have not felt at home in myself. I've worked hard at being the hero of my own life. But every time I checked the register of displaced persons, I was still on it. I didn't know how to belong. Longing? Yes. Belonging? No.”
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“I believe in fiction and the power of stories because that way we speak in tongues. We are not silenced. All of us, when in deep trauma, find we hesitate, we stammer; there are long pauses in our speech. The thing is stuck. We get our language back through the language of others. We can turn to the poem. We can open the book. Somebody has been there for us and deep-dived the words.”
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
― Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Darrel’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Darrel’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Darrel
Lists liked by Darrel














