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32,400 books
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123,419 voters
suppose the Greek philosopher, Epicurus, was right—“A free life cannot acquire many possessions, because this is not easy to do without servility to mobs or monarchs.”
“I was an only child. My parents were both smart, but they were flighty, and they loved each other so much, more than they ever loved me. I had to do a lot for myself, from a young age. It wasn't great. Now I feel like my childhood is with me every day. Being alone. Being shut out. Some people, maybe they had a terrible time, maybe a great time, but it isn't with them. I feel like it's always with me. I'm never not there. Do you know what I mean? I mean - how about you?”
― Sick Notes
― Sick Notes
“say you get caught inside one fixed idea of things, and you’re always clinging to it or whatever… that shit puts a block inside you. So now the river’s gotta move around this big fuck-off rock, and the more rocks you add to it, the more it starts flowing in weird ways, awkward diversions and stuff. And now you’re blocked up inside yourself, so you start to put blocks outside yourself too, in the world. Y’know?”
― Kala
― Kala
“I wish you had made me an enemy, I said, rather than yourself. Mothers, i thought, would be perfect for that role.
You can't be that for me, Mommy, Nikolai said. I've found a perfect enemy in myself.”
― Where Reasons End
You can't be that for me, Mommy, Nikolai said. I've found a perfect enemy in myself.”
― Where Reasons End
“War is a narrative: it might almost be said to embody the narrative principle itself. It is the attempt to create a story of life, to create agreement. In war, there is no point of view; war is the end of point of view, where violence is welcomed as the final means of arriving at a common version of events.”
― Coventry: Essays
― Coventry: Essays
“To be a natural presence, you shouldn't take up too much space, which I always found easy at the beginning of a friendship. It felt nice to reshape myself into precisely the right format until the moment came, usually once I'd shrunk to my minimum size, when I got moody. I always have to be careful what I say around you, my friends would say. Or if I suddenly lost my temper over something that hadn't previously angered me, they'd say, I don't have enough space for this. Then I would know that my presence was no longer a given and it was all my fault -- it wasn't fair to pretend I was something other than who I really was, to keep shapeshifting like some kind of Barbapapa. I'm either too much or too little. I'm terrible at dispensing the right dose of myself.”
― Waar ik liever niet aan denk
― Waar ik liever niet aan denk
Kate Esther’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Kate Esther’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
2,565 books
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344 friends
8,469 books
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72 friends
7,274 books
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1,022 friends
2,932 books
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221 friends
1,142 books
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81 friends
819 books
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143 friends
417 books
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165 friends
642 books
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733 friends
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