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“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
― Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid
“It’s hard to trust the world like that, to show it your belly. There’s something deep within me, something intensely fragile, that is terrified of turning itself to the world.
I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass.
But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.
And so I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out, and I tell myself: This doesn’t look like a picture. And it doesn’t look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
I think I’m just scared that if I show the world my belly, it will devour me. And so I wear the armor of cynicism, and hide behind the great walls of irony, and only glimpse beauty with my back turned to it, through the Claude glass.
But I want to be earnest, even if it’s embarrassing. The photographer Alec Soth has said, “To me, the most beautiful thing is vulnerability.” I would go a step further and argue that you cannot see the beauty which is enough unless you make yourself vulnerable to it.
And so I try to turn toward that scattered light, belly out, and I tell myself: This doesn’t look like a picture. And it doesn’t look like a god. It is a sunset, and it is beautiful, and this whole thing you’ve been doing where nothing gets five stars because nothing is perfect? That’s bullshit. So much is perfect. Starting with this. I give sunsets five stars.”
― The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
“I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.”
―
―
“Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.”
― The Shadow of the Wind
― The Shadow of the Wind
“She is here. And she comes to you, and she does not speak, and the others do not notice her, and she takes your hand, and you ready yourself to die, eyes open, aware this is all an illusion, a last aroma cast up by the chemical stew that is your brain, which will soon cease to function, ad there will be nothing, and you are ready, ready to die well, ready to die like a man, like a woman, like a human, for despite all else you have loved, you have loved your father and your mother and your brother and your sister and your son and, yes, your ex-wife and you have loved the pretty girl, you have been beyond yourself, and so you have courage, and you have dignity, and you have calmness in the face of terror, and awe, and the pretty girl holds your hand, and you contain her, and this book, and me writing it, and I too contain you, who may not even be born, you inside me inside you, though not in a creepy way, and so may you, may I, may we, so may all of us confront the end.”
― How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
― How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
Ella’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Ella’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
404 books
|
108 friends
396 books
|
230 friends
370 books
|
34 friends
217 books
|
13 friends
473 books
|
124 friends
2,111 books
|
84 friends
2,868 books
|
339 friends
215 books
|
17 friends
More friends…
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