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Matthew Martens
https://www.goodreads.com/lodestar2
“I suggest you try it, Margit. For every situation there is a proper distance. Growing up is just a matter of gaining perspective. Sometimes you just need to jump up for a moment, a foot above the earth. And sometimes you need to jump very far. It is as if there are thin slats, footholds, from here to the sun, Margit, for the babyfaces to step on. Do you understand?”
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“The vital force that drives men to throw away their lives and those of others in the pursuit of an imaginative impulse, reckless of its apparent effect on human welfare, is, like all natural forces, given to us in enormous excess to provide against an enormous waste. Therefore men, instead of economizing it by consecrating it to the service of their highest impulses, grasp at a phrase in a newspaper article, or in the speech of a politician on a vote-catching expedition, as an excuse for exercising it violently, just as a horse turned out to grass will gallop and kick merely to let off steam. The shallowness of the ideals of men ignorant of history is their destruction.”
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“The very fact of being human panics us into the most grotesque play-acting imaginable; and we deal in absurdities to keep life from being a total waste, like one constant jacking-off party.”
― Lord of Dark Places
― Lord of Dark Places
“Anyone who’s anyone in Dostoevsky’s novels sooner or later develops brain fever.”
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“And what about the most merciful Christian God, slowly roasting in the fires of hell all those who would not submit? Was He not an executioner? And was the number of those burned by the Christians on bonfires less than the number of burned Christians? Yet - you understand - this God was glorified for ages as the God of love. Absurd? No, on the contrary: it is testimony to the ineradicable wisdom of man, inscribed in blood. Even at that time - wild, shaggy - he understood: true, algebraic love of humanity is inevitably inhuman; and the inevitable mark of truth is - its cruelty. Just as the inevitable mark of fire is that it burns. Show me fire that does not burn. Well - argue with me, prove the contrary!”
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Matthew’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Matthew’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
343 books
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54 friends
2,840 books
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115 friends
1,581 books
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1,366 friends
3,796 books
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750 friends
1,192 books
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107 friends
2,286 books
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91 friends
1,822 books
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92 friends
1,062 books
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72 friends
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