baylee

“It’s difficult to live in this country in this moment and not come to the conclusion that the principal concern of the modern American liberal is, at all times, not what one does or believes or supports or opposes, but what one is seen to be.”
― Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

“What is it people encounter in their stark and solitary four a.m. self? What is inside them? Not politics. There are no politics inside of people. The truth of a person, under all the layers and guises, the significations of group and type, the quiet truth, underneath the noise of opinions and “beliefs,” is a substance that is pure and stubborn and consistent. It is a hard, white salt. This salt is the core. The four a.m. reality of being. When I came to understand this, it was literally four a.m. and I was staring at an actual mountain of salt.”
― Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake

“It’s come to shape the way I think about every country, every community: Whose nonexistence is necessary to the self-conception of this place, and how uncontrollable is the rage whenever that nonexistence is violated?”
― Omar El Akkad, One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This

“I feel a sympathy for Jean, Bruno wrote, but I won’t mince words. Whether in a rural outpost or an urban core, trying to dismantle capitalism from within capitalism is a dead end. (It was the first time I’d noticed his use of underlining.)”
― Rachel Kushner, Creation Lake