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“I've lived in New York long enough to understand why some people hate it here: the crowds, the noise, the traffic, the expense, the rents; the messed-up sidewalks and pothole-pocked streets; the weather that brings hurricanes named after girls that break your heart and take away everything.
It requires a certain kind of unconditional love to love living here. But New York repays you in time in memorable encounters, at the very least. Just remember: ask first, don't grab, be fair, say please and thank you- even if you don't get something back right away. You will.”
― Bill Hayes, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me

“O Lord I cannot bear the thought of Philip lying still in such a place as this and when that thought arises must hum some scrap of tune energetically while praying No no no take that cup away Lord let me go first before any of them I love (before Philip Mary Jack Jr before dear Lydia) only that’s no good either since when they reach their end I will not be there to help them?”
― George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

“I learned that not only had he never been in a relationship, he had also never came out publicly as a gay man. But in a way, he'd had no reason to do so- he hadn't had sex in three-and-a-half decades, he told me. At first, I did not believe him; such a monk like existence- devoted solely to work, reading, writing, thinking- seemed at once awe-inspiring and inconceivable. He was without a doubt the most unusual person I had ever known, and before long I found myself not just falling in love with O; it was something more, something I had never experienced before. I adored him.”
― Bill Hayes, Insomniac City: New York, Oliver, and Me

“His mind was freshly inclined to sorrow; toward the fact that the world was full of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in the world one must try to remember that all were suffering (non content all wronged, neglected, overlooked, misunderstood), and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact; that his current state of sorrow was not uniquely his, not at all, but rather, its like had been felt, would yet be felt, by scores of others in all times, in every time, and must not be prolonged or exaggerated, because, in this state, he could be of no help to anyone, and given that his position in the world situated him to be either of great help or great harm, it would not do to stay low, if he could help it.

All were in sorrow, or had been, or soon would be.

It was the nature of things.

Though on the surface is seemed every person was different, this was not true.

At the core of each lay suffering; our eventual end; the many loses we must experience on the way to that end.

We must try to see one another in this way.

As suffering limited beings-

Perennially outmatched by circumstance, inadequately endowed with compensatory graces.

His sympathy extended to all in this instant, blundering in its strict logic, across all divides.”
― George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo