“Because I don’t care what anyone says or how often or winningly they say it: no one will ever, ever be able to persuade me that life is some awesome, rewarding treat. Because, here’s the truth: life is a catastrophe. The basic fact of existence – of walking around trying to feed ourselves and find friends and whatever else we do – is a catastrophe. Forget all this ridiculous ‘Our Town’ nonsense everyone talks: the miracle of a newborn babe, the joy of one simple blossom, Life You Are Too Wonderful To Grasp, &c. For me – and I’ll keep repeating it doggedly till I die, till I fall over on my ungrateful nihilistic face and am too weak to say it: better never born, than born into this cesspool. Sinkhole of hospital beds, coffins, and broken hearts. No release, no appeal, no “do-overs” to employ a favored phrase of Xandra’s, no way forward but age and loss, and no way out but death.”
― The Goldfinch
― The Goldfinch
“Some people on this earth receive love, get married, and honeymoon in Cabo. Others do not. Some people read alone on the sofa and some people read together, in bed. That’s life.”
― You
― You
“Just eat it and shit it and be done with it and don’t feel special cuz you eat that shit with someone because in the end we all shit alone!”
― Hidden Bodies
― Hidden Bodies
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Northanger Abbey
― Northanger Abbey
Alexandria’s 2025 Year in Books
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