Nolan Park

“There were people in our dorm I wanted to befriend, where the inertia of proximity, I was certain, would one day result in closeness. I’d find an empty seat in the dining hall and admire your thrift shop T-shirt, your ironic pin; maybe we’d start going to see bands together. Perhaps we would cross paths in the foreign section of the video store; I would stay up late, listening to your problems, and then I’d share my secrets in return.”
― Hua Hsu, Stay True

“I can't go on, I'll go on.”
― Samuel Beckett, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On: A Samuel Beckett Reader

“People with self-respect exhibit a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called *character,* a quality which, although approved in the abstract, sometimes loses ground to the other, more instantly negotiable virtues.... character--the willingness to accept responsibility for one's own life--is the source from which self-respect springs.”
― Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

“What I learned from Naoko's death was this: no truth can cure the sadness we feel from losing a loved one. No truth, no sincerity, no strength, no kindness, can cure that sorrow. All we can do is see that sadness through to the end and learn something from it, but what we learn will be no help in facing the next sadness that comes to us without warning.”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood