“When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.”
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“There’s no freedom quite like the freedom of being constantly underestimated.”
― The Lies of Locke Lamora
― The Lies of Locke Lamora
“Difficult" and "impossible" are cousins often mistaken for one another, with very little in common.”
― Red Seas Under Red Skies
― Red Seas Under Red Skies
“The feelings that hurt most, the emotions that sting most, are those that are absurd - The longing for impossible things, precisely because they are impossible; nostalgia for what never was; the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else; dissatisfaction with the world’s existence. All these half-tones of the soul’s consciousness create in us a painful landscape, an eternal sunset of what we are.”
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“When you don't know everything that you could know, it's a fine time to shut your fucking noisemaker and be polite.”
― The Lies of Locke Lamora
― The Lies of Locke Lamora
Rafael’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Rafael’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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