“The memories I stored, I could not let festered. Could not let trauma infiltrate and spread, to spoil and render them useless. They were moments to be tended. The culture we shared I was active, effervescent in my gut and in my genes, and I had to seize it, foster it so it did not die in me. So that I could pass it on someday. The lessons she imparted, the proof of her life lived on in me, and in every move and deed. I was what she left behind. If I could not be with my mother, I would be her.”
― Crying in H Mart
― Crying in H Mart
“Hers was tougher than tough love. It was brutal, industrial-strength. A sinewy love that never gave way to an inch of weakness. It was a love that saw what was best for you ten steps ahead, and didn't care if it hurt like hell in the meantime. When I got hurt, she felt it so deeply, it was as though it were her own affliction. She was guilty only of caring too much. I realize this now, only in retrospect. No one in this would would ever love me as much as my mother, and she would never let me forget it.”
― Crying in H Mart
― Crying in H Mart
“Taleb opens the book with a poetic image that should speak to all parents. He notes that wind extinguishes a candle but energizes a fire. He advises us not to be like candles and not to turn our children into candles: "You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.”
― The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure
― The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting up a Generation for Failure
“She never seemed to lose her temper, but it would almost have been better if she did, for it was the flat, dry, passionless redundance of her scolding that got everybody down.”
― Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
― Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
“I’ve seen him become sober so many times and do so well, and struggle to be a right guy. And fall apart again. But to what end?”
― The Beauty of Living Twice
― The Beauty of Living Twice
Libby’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Libby’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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