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“In this culture we celebrate boys through the lexicon of violence. ‘You're killing it,’ 'you’re making a killing,’ ‘smash them,’ ‘blow them up,’ ‘you went into that game guns blazing,’ and I think it’s worth it to ask the question what happens to our men and boys when the only way they can valuate themselves is through the lexicon of death and destruction?
I think when they see themselves as only worthwhile when they are capable of destroying things, it’s inevitable that we arrive at a masculinity that is toxic”
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I think when they see themselves as only worthwhile when they are capable of destroying things, it’s inevitable that we arrive at a masculinity that is toxic”
―
“So on summer evenings, when summer finally came, and the full moon lit the fields so silver, you could squint and it would still look just like it did after snowfall. On those nights, Noah and I would run together through the tobacco, like this. And there was this mighty clear sky full of stars that made you stop and look up, you head empty as a ladle as you tried to locate yourself inside an immeasurable universe. And no one knows where you are and you feel, for a tiny second, that you have no parents, that they never existed at all, which is impossible and shameful to love, but I did. I loved that feeling.”
― The Emperor of Gladness
― The Emperor of Gladness
“Because to remember is to fill the present with the past, which meant that the cost of remembering anything, anything at all, is life itself. We murder ourselves, he thought, by remembering”
― The Emperor of Gladness
― The Emperor of Gladness
“Because my uncle never killed himself—but simply died, on purpose.”
― Time is a Mother
― Time is a Mother
“Three weeks after Trevor died a trio of tulips in an earthenware pot stopped me in the middle of my mind. I had woken abruptly and, still dazed from sleep, mistook the dawn light hitting the petals for the flowers emitting their own luminescence. I crawled to the glowing cups, thinking I was seeing a miracle, my own burning bush. But when I got closer, my head blocked the rays and the tulips turned off. This also means nothing, I know. But some nothings change everything after them. In Vietnamese, the word for missing someone and remembering them is the same: nhớ. Sometimes, when you ask me over the phone, Con nhớ mẹ không? I flinch, thinking you meant, Do you remember me? I miss you more than I remember you.”
― On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
― On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
Camille’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Camille’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Camille
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