“What mazes there are in this world. The branches of trees, the filigree of roots, the matrix of crystals, the streets her father recreated in his models... None more complicated than the human brain, Etienne would say, what may be the most complex object in existence; one wet kilogram within which spin universes.”
― All the Light We Cannot See
― All the Light We Cannot See
“When your fight has purpose—to free you from something, to interfere on the behalf of an innocent—it has a hope of finality. When the fight is about unraveling—when it is about your name, the places to which your blood is anchored, the attachment of your name to some landmark or event—there is nothing but hate, and the long, slow progression of people who feed on it and are fed it, meticulously, by the ones who come before them. Then the fight is endless, and comes in waves and waves, but always retains its capacity to surprise those who hope against it.”
― The Tiger's Wife
― The Tiger's Wife
“So how, children, does the brain, which lives without a spark of light, build for us a world full of light?”
― All the Light We Cannot See
― All the Light We Cannot See
“It is easy to sanctify policies or identities by the deaths of victims. It is less appealing, but morally more urgent, to understand the actions of the perpetrators. The moral danger, after all, is never that one might become a victim but that one might be a perpetrator or a bystander.”
― Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
― Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
“I refuse to "look up." Optimism nauseates me. It is perverse. Since man's fall, his proper position in the universe has been one of misery.”
― A Confederacy of Dunces
― A Confederacy of Dunces
Sebastian’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Sebastian’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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