Valentina

“We had once what we can never have again. So why, then, do we behave as if everything we have connected with, everything we have blessed with our loving, should be ours for keeps? It is enough to have tiptoed to that space beyond the skin, beyond our nerve endings, and to have glimpsed things that beforehand we only half knew.”
― Rachel Joyce, A Faraway Smell of Lemon

“Loving someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.”
― Fredrik Backman, A Man Called Ove

“- Децата ни гледат през цялото време... те те виждат какъв си наистина. Ти мислиш как ще им четеш приказки, каква музика ще им пускаш... Как ще им се посветиш. Ама не става така. В крайна сметка нямаш време за никакво специално отношение. Те са си като част от живота ти, като всичко останало. И с тях ти си си какъвто си си. Те са свидетели на твоята истинска същност, а не Господ. Те те гледат непрекъснато, а не Господ. Те те изкушават, те те предизвикват да се ядосаш и да станеш лош... и да ги удариш. Ако се поддадеш и ги удариш? Ако съгрешиш? И ги превърнеш в лоши деца... и си продължил злото в живота... на още едно поколение. Те са ти Божието наказание и Божието опрощение. Ако си добър и забравиш себе си и своя яд, и не ги удариш... ако се отдадеш безкористно на децата си, те са твоето опрощение в тоя живот. Не Бог. Те са твоят Бог.
”
― Георги Илиев

“The minute I was bored with a book or a subject I moved to another one, instead of giving up on reading altogether - when you are limited to the school material and you get bored, you have a tendency to give up and do nothing or play hooky out of discouragement.

The trick is to be bored with a specific book, rather than with the act of reading. So the number of the pages absorbed could grow faster than otherwise. And you find gold, so to speak, effortlessly, just as in rational but undirected trial-and-error-based research. It is exactly like options, trial and error, not getting stuck, bifurcating when necessary but keeping a sense of broad freedom and opportunism.

Trial and error is freedom.”
― Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder