“You can’t know what it is like for us now—you will always be one step behind. Be thankful for that. You can’t know what it was like for us then—you will always be one step ahead. Be thankful for that, too. Trust us: There is a nearly perfect balance between the past and the future. As we become the distant past, you become a future few of us would have imagined. It’s hard to think of such things when you are busy dreaming or loving or screwing. The context falls away. We are a spirit-burden you carry, like that of your grandparents, or the friends from your childhood who at some point moved away. We try to make it as light a burden as possible. And at the same time, when we see you, we cannot help but think of ourselves. We were once the ones who were dreaming and loving and screwing. We were once the ones who were living, and then we were the ones who were dying. We sewed ourselves, a thread’s width, into your history. We were once like you, only our world wasn’t like yours. You have no idea how close to death you came. A generation or two earlier, you might be here with us. We resent you. You astonish us.”
― Two Boys Kissing
― Two Boys Kissing
“Fools and young men prate about everything being possible for a man. That, however, is a great error. Spiritually speaking, everything is possible, but in the world of the finite there is much which is not possible.”
― Fear and Trembling
― Fear and Trembling
“We live lives that are waveforms constantly changing with time, now positive, now negative. Only at moments of great serenity is it possible to find the pure, the informationless state of signal zero.”
― Gravity's Rainbow
― Gravity's Rainbow
“He was powerless because he had no precise desire, and this tortured him because he was vainly seeking something to desire.”
― Mary
― Mary
“She is dearer to me than life. But her suffering comes from within, and only she can rid herself of it. For she is free.”
― No Exit and Three Other Plays
― No Exit and Three Other Plays
Stefan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Stefan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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Art, Comics, Contemporary, Fiction, Graphic novels, Music, Mystery, Philosophy, Poetry, Suspense, and Young-adult
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