Helen Yu

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Devdutt Pattanaik
“Within infinite myths lies the eternal truth
Who sees it all?
Varuna has but a thousand eyes,
Indra has a hundred,
You and I, only two.”
Devdutt Pattanaik, Myth = Mithya: A Handbook of Hindu Mythology

Nathaniel Hawthorne
“The fiend in his own shape is less hideous than when he rages in the breast of men.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne, Young Goodman Brown

Theodore Roosevelt
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt, Strenuous Life

Sylvia Plath
“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”
Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Ralph Ellison
“I knew that it was better to live out one’s own absurdity than to die for that of others.”
Ralph Ellison

year in books
Daniell...
1,500 books | 41 friends

Kat Zhou
441 books | 202 friends

Maggie
407 books | 215 friends

Matt Ma...
381 books | 85 friends

Robin Kirk
2,516 books | 270 friends

Brian Lin
65 books | 137 friends

Sachin ...
236 books | 100 friends

Andrea
312 books | 126 friends

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