ash

“I think what people were is less important than what they are. And what people are is less important than what they could be.”
― C.S. Pacat, Dark Rise

“He came into my life in February 1932 and never left it again. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, more than nine thousand days, desultory and tedious, hollow with the sense of effort or work without hope- days and years, many of them as dead as dry leaves on a dead tree. I can remember the day and the hour when I first set eyes on this boy who was to be the source of my greatest happiness and of my greatest despair.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“The ideal world for an imperfect being is an imperfect world. It's something they accepted a long time ago.

Someone down there put it very well once.

He talked about how he liked to sit on a bench at the park and feed the ducks. He didn't try to get "better" at feeding the ducks. He didn't try to feed more ducks. He wasn't trying to optimize the nutritional quality of the bread. He wasn't trying to get it over with. He realized that ultimately, he wasn't even sure he experienced any benefit from it. He couldn't explain to anyone why he went to the park and fed the ducks, least of all himself.

He was feeding the ducks because he was feeding the ducks because he was feeding the ducks.”
― Jon Bois, 20020: An American football story

“Their eyes were always red. In the morning, when they woke us up, it was from stove smoke. And in the evening, when they said good night to us, still dressed, it was from exhaustion. And sometimes it was from crying over someone who would never come home again. Ask us about the color of a mother’s eyes, and we’d reply, “They’re not brown. They aren’t green. They’re neither blue nor gray. They’re red.” That’s what we’d say.”
― Carsten Jensen, We, the Drowned