6 ratings (4.33 avg)
30 reviews

Noah Damski

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Noah’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (65)

currently-reading‎ (13)

read‎ (52)

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Noah is Currently Reading

Noah Damski is currently reading

Another Country

by James Baldwin

bookshelves: currently-reading

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(page 251 of 448)
"I’m stupid, but when a book gets too long, I just get tired. I finished the earlier James Baldwin books because they were all about this length, but I’m only halfway done with this one. I’m taking a break and going back to Joan Didion." — Jan 30, 2026 04:55PM

Jan 23, 2026 03:44AM

Noah Damski is currently reading

The Courage to Be

by Paul Tillich

bookshelves: currently-reading

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progress:

(page 160 of 200)
"It’s nice reading this at the same time as the James Baldwin book, because they explore the same topic, but this though philosophy and the other through narration.

Courage is self-affirmation in-spite-of anxiety. Existence is being gained in-spite-of nonbeing." — Jan 01, 2026 08:17PM

Dec 28, 2025 09:00AM

Noah Damski is currently reading

The Things They Carried

by Tim O'Brien

bookshelves: currently-reading

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(page 112 of 246)
"I was not expecting this book to be good, but it has me tearing up. Thank you Tim, for sharing your life on these pages." — Dec 27, 2025 01:46PM

Dec 27, 2025 01:45PM

See all 13 books that Noah is reading…

Noah’s Quotes

“So much is spoken about wasting one’s life. But the only life wasted is the life of one who so lived it, deceived by life’s pleasures or its sorrows, that he never became decisively, eternally, conscious of himself as spirit, as self, or, what is the same, he never became aware- and gained in the deepest sense the impression- that there is a God there and that ‘he’, himself, his self, exists before this God, which infinite gain is never come by except through despair.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition For Upbuilding And Awakening (Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol 19) (v. 19) by Soren Kierkegaard published by Princeton University Press

2 likes

“125. Of course, you could just take off the blindfold and say, 'I think this game is stupid and I'm not playing it anymore.' And it must also be admitted that hitting the wall or wandering off in the wrong direction or tearing off the blindfold is as much a part of the game as is pinning the tail on the donkey.”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

36 likes

“Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson

3 likes

“The idea is a complicated one, as the burden falls to us to differentiate this Divine Darkness from other kinds of darknesses-- that off a "dark night of the soul," the darkness of sin, and so on. "We pray that we may come unto this Darkness which is beyond light, and, without seeing and without knowing, to see and to know that which is above vision and knowledge through the realization that by not seeing and unknowing we attain to true vision and knowledge," Dionysius wrote, as if clarifying the matter. Equally complicated: the idea of agnosia, or unknowing, which is what one ideally finds, or undergoes, or achieves, within this Divine Darkness. Again: this agnosia is not a form of ignorance, but rather a kind of undoing. (As if one knew once, then forgot? But what did one know?)”
― Maggie Nelson, Bluets

2 likes