“You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters—all that matters, really—is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever-present consciousness. The rest—women, art, success—is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”
― A Happy Death
― A Happy Death
“He knew now that it was his own will to happiness which must make the next move. But if he was to do so, he realized that he must come to terms with time, that to have time was at once the most magnificent and the most dangerous of experiments. Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre.”
― A Happy Death
― A Happy Death
“He realized now that to be afraid of this death he was staring at with animal terror meant to be afraid of life. Fear of dying justified a limitless attachment to what is alive in man. And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence— they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved. They had not lived enough, never having lived at all. And death was a kind of gesture, forever withholding water from the traveler vainly seeking to slake his thirst. But for the others, it was the fatal and tender gesture that erases and denies, smiling at gratitude as at rebellion.”
― A Happy Death
― A Happy Death
“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”
― A Happy Death
― A Happy Death
“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― A Happy Death
― A Happy Death
Delia’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Delia’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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