1,930 books
—
3,629 voters
Cat Chmaj
https://www.goodreads.com/catchmaj
to-read
(1979)
currently-reading (12)
read (364)
did-not-finish (0)
on-deck (696)
non-fiction (439)
fiction (407)
books-i-own (349)
science-and-nature (278)
currently-reading (12)
read (364)
did-not-finish (0)
on-deck (696)
non-fiction (439)
fiction (407)
books-i-own (349)
science-and-nature (278)
cultural
(196)
classics (179)
favorites (154)
fantasy (152)
little-shelf-of-horror (147)
ya (145)
want-to-read-again (134)
adventure (126)
history (115)
classics (179)
favorites (154)
fantasy (152)
little-shelf-of-horror (147)
ya (145)
want-to-read-again (134)
adventure (126)
history (115)
Cat Chmaj
is currently reading
bookshelves:
classics,
fiction,
on-deck,
science-fiction-double-feature,
currently-reading,
books-i-own,
fantasy,
little-shelf-of-horror
Almost all of life on the surface of the earth is fueled by the enormous amounts of energy intercepted from the sun, through a chemical reaction involving one main molecule, chlorophyll, and its reaction with water and carbon dioxide to
...more
“The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything. But amid pure nature (or the ‘tonic of wildness’ as Thoreau called it) solitude took on a different character. It became in itself a kind of connection. A connection between herself and the world. And between her and herself.”
― The Midnight Library
― The Midnight Library
“She had thought, in her nocturnal and suicidal hours, that solitude was the problem. But that was because it hadn't been true solitude. The lonely mind in the busy city yearns for connection because it thinks human-to-human connection is the point of everything. But amid pure nature (or the 'tonic of wildness' as Thoreau called it) solitude took on a different character. It became in itself a kind of connection. A connection between herself and the world. And between her and herself.”
― The Midnight Library
― The Midnight Library
“So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.”
― Brief Answers to the Big Questions
― Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“We only need to be one person.
We only need to feel one existence.
We don't have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.”
― The Midnight Library
We only need to feel one existence.
We don't have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite. While we are alive we always contain a future of multifarious possibility.”
― The Midnight Library
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
Cat’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Cat’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Cat
Lists liked by Cat
































































