Grace Tjan

“...one of those very bad men that not even postmodernism can explain away.”
― Junot Diaz

“Three or four times only in my youth did I glimpse the Joyous Isles, before they were lost to fogs, depressions, cold fronts, ill winds, and contrary tides... I mistook them for adulthood. Assuming they were a fixed feature in my life's voyage, I neglected to record their latitude, their longitude, their approach. Young ruddy fool. What wouldn't I give now for a never-changing map of the ever-constant ineffable? To possess, as it were, an atlas of clouds.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“A book,
a book full
of human touches,
of shirts,
a book
without loneliness, with men
and tools,
a book
is victory.”
― Pablo Neruda, Odes to Common Things

“They will not be pleased. But they know we must catch the monsoon with a well-found ship; and they know they are in the Navy--they have chosen their cake, and must lie on it.'
You mean, they cannot have their bed and eat it.'
No, no, it is not quite that either. I mean--I wish you would not confuse my mind, Stephen.”
― Patrick O'Brian, H.M.S. Surprise