Jon

“Talent is universal, but opportunity is not.”
― Kennedy Odede, Find Me Unafraid: Love, Loss, and Hope in an African Slum

“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.”
― Elizabeth Alexander, The Light of the World

“He’d been spending more time in the past lately. He liked to close his eyes and let his memories overtake him. A life, remembered, is a series of photographs and disconnected short films: the school play when he was nine, his father beaming in the front row; clubbing with Arthur in Toronto, under whirling lights; a lecture hall at NYU. An executive, a client, running his hands through his hair as he talked about his terrible boss. A procession of lovers, remembered in details: a set of dark blue sheets, a perfect cup of tea, a pair of sunglasses, a smile. The Brazilian pepper tree in a friend’s backyard in Silver Lake. A bouquet of tiger lilies on a desk. Robert's smile. His mother's hands, knitting while she listened to the BBC.”
― Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven

“The point of books was to combat loneliness”
― David Lipsky, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself: A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace