Mariam Abaishvili
https://www.goodreads.com/mariamabaishvili
“I’ve always known, on a purely intellectual level, that our separateness and isolation are an illusion. We’re all made of the same thing—the blown-out pieces of matter formed in the fires of dead stars.”
― Dark Matter
― Dark Matter
“As a boy I slept in a meadow one night. It was summer and the sky was very clear. Before I fell asleep I saw Orion on the horizon, standing above the woods. Then I woke up in the middle of the night—and suddenly Orion was standing high above me. I have never forgotten that. I had learned that the earth is a planet and rotates; but I had learned it as one learns something from books and does not quite realize. But now, for the first time I felt that it really was like that. I felt that the earth was silently flying through the immensities of space. I felt it so strongly that I almost believed I had to hold onto something in order not to be hurled off. Probably it happened because, emerging from a deep sleep and bereft for a moment of memory and habit, I looked into the huge, displaced sky. Suddenly the earth was no longer firm—and since then it has never become wholly firm again—” He”
― Arch of Triumph
― Arch of Triumph
“Imagine you’re a fish, swimming in a pond. You can move forward and back, side to side, but never up out of the water. If someone were standing beside the pond, watching you, you’d have no idea they were there. To you, that little pond is an entire universe. Now imagine that someone reaches down and lifts you out of the pond. You see that what you thought was the entire world is only a small pool. You see other ponds. Trees. The sky above. You realize you’re a part of a much larger and more mysterious reality than you had ever dreamed of.”
― Dark Matter
― Dark Matter
“If there are infinite worlds, how do I find the one that is uniquely, specifically mine?”
― Dark Matter
― Dark Matter
“No man is worth more than another, wherever he is from."
"But what if he is your friend? Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?"
"You ask a question that philosophers argue over. He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?"
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― The Song of Achilles
"But what if he is your friend? Or your brother? Should you treat him the same as a stranger?"
"You ask a question that philosophers argue over. He is worth more to you, perhaps. But the stranger is someone else's friend and brother. So which life is more important?"
We had been silent. We were fourteen, and these things were too hard for us. Now that we are twenty-seven, they still feel too hard.
He is half my soul, as the poets say. He will be dead soon, and his honor is all that will remain. It is his child his dearest self. Should I reproach him for it? I have saved Briseis. I cannot save them all.
I know, now, how I would answer Chiron. I would say: there is no answer. Whichever you choose, you are wrong.”
― The Song of Achilles
Mariam’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Mariam’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Art, Crime, Fiction, Horror, Mystery, Non-fiction, Paranormal, Philosophy, Poetry, Psychology, Romance, Science fiction, and Thriller
Polls voted on by Mariam
Lists liked by Mariam

![Асканио [Ascanio] by Alexandre Dumas Асканио [Ascanio] by Alexandre Dumas](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1426509043l/46524._SY75_.jpg)


















