Matt Bean

“He stood in the center of the square where the tracks of commerce lay fossilized in dried mud all about him, turning, an amphitheatrical figure in that moonwrought waste manacled to a shadow that struggled grossly in the dust.”
― Cormac McCarthy, Outer Dark

“manifestations of paranoia. We must content ourselves with the mystery, the absurdity, the contradictions, the hostility, but also the generosity that our environment offers us. It’s not much, but it’s always better than the deadly, defeatist certainty of the paranoid.”
― Philip K. Dick, Philip K. Dick: The Last Interview: and Other Conversations

“Judging them for what they couldn’t do then, and even what they can’t do now, doesn’t make anything better. Their inaction does not define them because they also did so many great things and I love them both, and I cherish the relationships I have with them. And selfishly, as a parent, I would want some of that slack, too. In case my kids write a tell-all book about me in 2059, I want to instill in them that I’m always going to be there for them, and I’m going to mess up, and when I do, I will be empathetic, I will apologize, and I’ll do better. Most importantly, I’ll keep talking with them until they feel better. So far, it’s working.”
― Paul Scheer, Joyful Recollections of Trauma: A Hilariously Cathartic Memoir-in-Essays of Childhood Turmoil, Self Healing, and Finding Happiness

“because at that point, the point at which my acceleration began to reverse, time started running together—there was no more arc of ascension by which to measure it.”
― Jennifer Egan, Look at Me