“As Hegel said, tragedy was not the conflict between right and wrong but right and right , a dilemma none of us who wanted participate in history could escape.”
― The Sympathizer
― The Sympathizer
“She cursed me at such length and with such inventiveness I had to check both my watch and my dictionary.”
― The Sympathizer
― The Sympathizer
“How strange we are. How different we are from how we think we are. We fall out of love only to fall in love with a duplicate of what we've left, never understanding that we love what we love and that it doesn't change.”
― Cities I've Never Lived In
― Cities I've Never Lived In
“We don’t succeed or fail because of fortune or luck. We succeed because we understand the way the world works and what we have to do. We fail because others understand this better than we do.”
― The Sympathizer
― The Sympathizer
“The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body.The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become. Conversely, the absolute absence of burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant. What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
― The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Isabelle’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Isabelle’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Isabelle
Lists liked by Isabelle


























