Aberdeen

“Imagine you're evil.

Not misunderstood.

Not sad.

But evil.

Imagine you've got a heart that spends all day wanting more.

Imagine your mind is a selfish room full of pride or pity.

Imagine you're like Brandon Goff and you find poor kids in the halls and make fun of their clothes, and you flick their ears until they scream in pain and swing their arms, and so you pin them down and break their fingers.

Or you spit in his food in the cafeteria.

Or you just call him things like cockroach and sand monkey.

Imagine you're evil and you don't do any of those things, but you're like Julie Jenkins and you laugh and you laugh at everything Brandon does, and you even help when a teacher comes and asks what's going on and you say nothing's going on, and he believes you because you get A-pluses in English.

Or imagine you just watch all of this. And you act like you're disgusted, because you don't like meanness. But you don't do anything or tell anyone.

Imagine how much you've got compared to all the kids in the world getting blown up or starved, and the good you could do if you spent half a second thinking about it.

Suddenly evil isn't punching people or even hating them.

Suddenly it's all that stuff you've left undone.

All the kindness you could have given.

All the excuses you gave instead.

Imagine that for a minute.

Imagine what it means.”
― Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad Is Untrue

“To Marx, it seemed foolish not to love as many things as you could.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

“Sometimes you just want somebody to look at a thing with you and say, “Yes. That is a thing you’re looking at. You haven’t lied to yourself.”
― Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad Is Untrue

“A patchwork story is the shame of a refugee.”
― Daniel Nayeri, Everything Sad Is Untrue