Sphere
by
And he did not think that anxiety as a clinical problem was going to be solved with pills. It seemed to him that a society in which the most common prescription drug was Valium was, by definition, a society with unsolved problems.
“The sun rises every day. What is to love? Lock the sun in a box. Force the sun to overcome adversity in order to rise. Then we will cheer! I will often admire beautiful sunrise, but I will never consider the sun a champion for having risen.”
― The Art of Racing in the Rain
― The Art of Racing in the Rain
“Here's why I will be a good person. Because I listen. I cannot talk, so I listen very well. I never deflect the course of the conversation with a comment of my own. People, if you pay attention to them, change the direction of one another's conversations constantly. It's like being a passenger in your car who suddenly grabs the steering wheel and turns you down a side street. For instance, if we met at a party and I wanted to tell you a story about the time I needed to get a soccer ball in my neighbor's yard but his dog chased me and I had to jump into a swimming pool to escape, and I began telling the story, you, hearing the words "soccer" and "neighbor" in the same sentence, might interrupt and mention that your childhood neighbor was Pele, the famous soccer player, and I might be courteous and say, Didn't he play for the Cosmos of New York? Did you grow up in New York? And you might reply that, no, you grew up in Brazil on the streets of Tres Coracoes with Pele, and I might say, I thought you were from Tennessee, and you might say not originally, and then go on to outline your genealogy at length. So my initial conversational gambit - that I had a funny story about being chased by my neighbor's dog - would be totally lost, and only because you had to tell me all about Pele. Learn to listen! I beg of you. Pretend you are a dog like me and listen to other people rather than steal their stories.”
― The Art of Racing in the Rain
― The Art of Racing in the Rain
“I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy.”
― Frankenstein
― Frankenstein
“... the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.”
― Frankenstein: The 1818 Text
― Frankenstein: The 1818 Text
“This is a rule of racing: No race has ever been won in the first corner; many have been lost there.”
― The Art of Racing in the Rain
― The Art of Racing in the Rain
Abhishek’s 2024 Year in Books
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