“He smiled understandingly-much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced--or seemed to face--the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”
― The Great Gatsby
― The Great Gatsby
“Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.'
That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack.”
― H.M.S. Surprise
That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack.”
― H.M.S. Surprise
“Other people's marriages are a perpetual source of amazement.”
― The Commodore
― The Commodore
“I’ve spent so much of my life wondering why I am here, feeling this ache behind my solar plexus that my life isn’t for anything, that it doesn’t mean anything, that the hurt hurts too much and the joy gives too little. But in the shade of the ginkgo tree, I’m able to feel, if only in moments, why I am here—that I am here to pay attention. I am here to love and to be loved, and to know and to not know. And most of all, I am here to be. To be not just on this planet, but with it. I am here to be with you, to be with my family, and even to be with this forest. The gift is being itself, and who better to show us that than the oldest lady in town.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
“And so it goes that, even as children, we understand something we cannot articulate: The diagnosis never changes. We will always be hungry, will always want. Our bodies and minds will always crave something, even if we don't recognize it.
And in the same way the dandelion's destruction tells us about ourselves, so does our own destruction: our bodies are ecosystems, and they shed and replace and repair until we die. And when we die, our bodies feed the hungry earth, our cells becoming part of other cells, and in the world of the living, where we used to be, people kiss and hold hands and fall in love and fuck and laugh and cry and hurt others and nurse broken hearts and start wars and pull sleeping children out of car seats and shout at each other. If you could harness that energy- that constant, roving hunger- you could do wonders with it. You could push the earth inch by inch through the cosmos until it collided heart-first with the sun.”
― In the Dream House
And in the same way the dandelion's destruction tells us about ourselves, so does our own destruction: our bodies are ecosystems, and they shed and replace and repair until we die. And when we die, our bodies feed the hungry earth, our cells becoming part of other cells, and in the world of the living, where we used to be, people kiss and hold hands and fall in love and fuck and laugh and cry and hurt others and nurse broken hearts and start wars and pull sleeping children out of car seats and shout at each other. If you could harness that energy- that constant, roving hunger- you could do wonders with it. You could push the earth inch by inch through the cosmos until it collided heart-first with the sun.”
― In the Dream House
Marah’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Marah’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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