“One scene stayed with de Chauliac forever, obsessing him, even though, mercifully, the rest would blur; he saw a devil with wide black wings gripped by two angels, who drove it down and seemed to speak in its ears as they fell; they hit the bend of the Rhone, sending up a great, illuminated plume of water visible from Orange.
Two angels and a devil had tumbled into the water.
Three angels came up.
Forgiveness, then, was possible even for the worst.”
― Between Two Fires
Two angels and a devil had tumbled into the water.
Three angels came up.
Forgiveness, then, was possible even for the worst.”
― Between Two Fires
“a man must learn to forgive—to know what is important, that to live without forgiveness was a kind of death with breathing and movement.”
― Pachinko
― Pachinko
“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s what part of it means to be alive. But inside our heads — at least that’s where I imagine it — there’s a little room where we store those memories. A room like the stacks in this library. And to understand the workings of our own heart we have to keep on making new reference cards. We have to dust things off every once in a while, let fresh air in, change the water in the flower vases. In other words, you’ll live for ever in your own private library.”
― Kafka on the Shore
― Kafka on the Shore
“There's no such things as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn't matter whether a solution's optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the alternative.”
― Blindsight
― Blindsight
“Every concert pianist knows that the surest way to ruin a performance is to be aware of what the fingers are doing. Every dancer and acrobat knows enough to let the mind go, let the body run itself. Every driver of a manual vehicle arrives at destinations with no recollection of the stops and turns and roads traveled in getting there. You are all sleepwalkers, whether climbing creative peaks or slogging through some mundane routine for the thousandth time. You are all sleepwalkers.”
― Blindsight
― Blindsight
Eli’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Eli’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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