At birth, they’d been charged by God with the responsibility of growing into total fuckups. Had they chosen this? Was it their fault, as they tumbled out of the womb? Had they aspired, covered in placental blood, to grow into harmers, dark
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“I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away a long time ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay on the other side: Her side attacks. Her secret weapons. Her uncanny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was finally there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her sword, getting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.”
― The Joy Luck Club
― The Joy Luck Club
“You will be in positions that matter. Positions in which you can decide the
nature and quality of other people’s lives. Your errors may be irrevocable.
So when you enter those places of trust, or power, dream a little before you
think, so your thoughts, your solutions, your directions, your choices about
who lives and who doesn’t, about who flourishes and who doesn’t will be
worth the very sacred life you have chosen to live. You are not helpless.
You are not heartless. And you have time.”
― The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
nature and quality of other people’s lives. Your errors may be irrevocable.
So when you enter those places of trust, or power, dream a little before you
think, so your thoughts, your solutions, your directions, your choices about
who lives and who doesn’t, about who flourishes and who doesn’t will be
worth the very sacred life you have chosen to live. You are not helpless.
You are not heartless. And you have time.”
― The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
“It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify.
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question.”
― Utilitarianism
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, is of a different opinion, it is only because they only know their own side of the question.”
― Utilitarianism
“But I now thought that this end [one's happiness] was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness[....] Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness along the way[....] Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”
― Autobiography
― Autobiography
“What an astonishing thing it is to find someone. Loss may alter our sense of scale, reminding us that the world is overwhelmingly large while we are incredibly tiny. But finding does the same; the only difference is that it makes us marvel rather than despair. In all the vast reaches of space, among all of life's infinite permutations, out of all the trajectories and possibilities and people on the planet, here I was, in this house, following along beside C. as she took my hand and led me out of the living room and into the kitchen, where, she told me, there was something else she wanted me to see.”
― Lost & Found: A Memoir
― Lost & Found: A Memoir
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