Terry

“So here’s a really stupid thing about the world: The trick to looking cool is not caring whether you look cool. So the moment you achieve perfect coolness is simultaneously the moment that you actually, completely don’t care. I didn’t care about the gravitas of that TV show, and the freedom and security and confidence that came with that was a rush. It took me a while to realize that the feeling I was feeling was power.”
― Hank Green, An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

“Drenched in café au lait stucco, the mall was bordered by an example of America’s most unique architectural contribution to the world, a parking lot. Some bemoan the brutalism of socialist architecture, but was the blandness of capitalist architecture any better? One could drive for miles and see nothing but parking lots and the kudzu of strip malls catering to every need, from pet shops to water dispensaries to ethnic restaurants and every other imaginable category of mom-and-pop small business, each one an advertisment for the pursuit of happiness.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

“He could almost see insider her that unnameable thing that had remained the same through all of it: her I, her very life. It seemed so small, a mustard seed with one rootlet shit deep into the earth, strong and fragile at once. But it was all there needed to be. It was everything. She had given it to him, and now he held it in his hands”
― Julie Orringer, The Invisible Bridge

“And then I thought to myself, "you know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"
It was a brilliant idea: you have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
― Richard Feynman, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character