Sign in with Facebook
Mai
https://www.goodreads.com/maiohhmy
to-read
(364)
currently-reading (5)
read (124)
formative-fiction-from-my-youth (41)
memoirs-autobiographies-journals (24)
currently-reading (5)
read (124)
formative-fiction-from-my-youth (41)
memoirs-autobiographies-journals (24)
mindless-enjoyment
(24)
maybe-read (11)
fiction (10)
thoughts-reflection-and-god (9)
vn-heritage (9)
maybe-read (11)
fiction (10)
thoughts-reflection-and-god (9)
vn-heritage (9)
This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
by
The immediate point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about.
“When someone is young, he is not capable of conceiving of time as a circle, but thinks of it as a road leading forward to ever-new horizons; he does not yet sense that his life contains just a single theme; he will come to realise it only when his life begins to enact its first variations.”
― Immortality
― Immortality
“You don’t have to be rich to leave a positive legacy; you don’t have to be intelligent, famous, powerful or even particularly well organised, let alone happy. You need only to treat people with kindness, compassion and respect, knowing they will have been enriched by their encounters with you.”
― The Good Life
― The Good Life
“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. —D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study, pg. 20”
― The Quotable Anais Nin: 365 Quotations with Citations
― The Quotable Anais Nin: 365 Quotations with Citations
“The ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.”
― Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
― Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
“Suspending moral judgment is not the immorality of the novel; it is its morality. The morality that stands against the ineradicable human habit of judging instantly, ceaselessly, and everyone; of judging before, and in the absence of, understanding. From the viewpoint of the novel's wisdom, that fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil. Not that the novelist utterly denies that moral judgment is legitimate, but that he refuses it a place in the novel. If you like, you can accuse Panurge of cowardice, accuse Emma Bovary, accuse Rastignac—that's your business; the novelist has nothing to do with it.”
― Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts
― Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts
readers advisory for all
— 5682 members
— last activity Sep 13, 2025 11:35AM
life's too short to read crappy books. this is why readers' advisory exists. feel free to join if you are looking for "a book like____" or "a book tha ...more
Mai’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mai’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
768 books
|
85 friends
212 books
|
43 friends
664 books
|
23 friends
462 books
|
32 friends
139 books
|
53 friends
285 books
|
8 friends
237 books
|
16 friends
123 books
|
8 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Mai
Lists liked by Mai
