Andreea

“A man is like a forest; individual and yet connected and dependent on others for growth.”
― Ken Mogi, Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day

“Shoddy construction and inadvertent errors, intimidation and actual deception—these are part and parcel of industrial life. No industry is without these problems, just as no valve can be made failure-proof. Normally, the consequences are not catastrophic. They may be, however, if you build systems with catastrophic potential.”
― Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies

“How can I explain to you, my happiness, my golden wonderful happiness, how much I am all yours — with all my memories, poems, outbursts, inner whirlwinds? Or explain that I cannot write a word without hearing how you will pronounce it — and can’t recall a single trifle I’ve lived through without regret — so sharp! — that we haven’t lived through it together — whether it’s the most, the most personal, intransmissible — or only some sunset or other at the bend of a road — you see what I mean, my happiness?

And I know: I can’t tell you anything in words — and when I do on the phone then it comes out completely wrong. Because with you one needs to talk wonderfully, the way we talk with people long gone… in terms of purity and lightness and spiritual precision… You can be bruised by an ugly diminutive — because you are so absolutely resonant — like seawater, my lovely.

I swear — and the inkblot has nothing to do with it — I swear by all that’s dear to me, all I believe in — I swear that I have never loved before as I love you, — with such tenderness — to the point of tears — and with such a sense of radiance.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Letters to Vera

“I make friends with terribly interesting people with terribly complicated problems.”
― Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire