The shattered things in me accumulate, filling me with a strident noise. It rides up my throat and into my mouth, and I am forced to stuff a fist in, to choke on it. In the silence, my breathing aligns.
“You don’t fix hurts by pretending they never happened. You treat them like infected wounds. You dig deep with a burning knife and gouge out the rotten flesh and then, maybe, you have a chance to heal.”
― The Burning God
― The Burning God
“Active collaboration was aided by the willful blindness of those who, despite living at or near the scene of the crime, would later claim to have seen nothing.”
― Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz
― Cold Crematorium: Reporting from the Land of Auschwitz
“we push in the right spots – if we create losses where the Empire can’t stand to suffer them – then we’ve moved things to the breaking point. Then the future becomes fluid, and change is possible. History isn’t a premade tapestry that we’ve got to suffer, a closed world with no exit. We can form it. Make it. We just have to choose to make it.”
― Babel
― Babel
“find that teachers are often the most compassionate people on the planet. Yes, we may enjoy leading or organizing or imparting knowledge, but at the heart of it, many teachers get into the career because of our own brokenness. We become the kind of teachers we needed.”
― Beg, Borrow, or Steal
― Beg, Borrow, or Steal
“Now I never give him pieces of myself. I have zero hope for us. It’s a weird thing to let yourself grieve your parent who is still living, but I’ve done it—do it regularly, actually.”
― Beg, Borrow, or Steal
― Beg, Borrow, or Steal
Karen’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Karen’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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