“A suspicion that lightness is not deeply serious (but instead whimsical) pervades aesthetic discourse. But what if lightness is a philosophical choice to temper reality with strangeness, to temper the intellect with emotion, and to temper emotion with humor.”
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―
“When you believe niceness disproves the presence of racism, it’s easy to start believing bigotry is rare, and that the label racist should be applied only to mean-spirited, intentional acts of discrimination. The problem with this framework—besides being a gross misunderstanding of how racism operates in systems and structures enabled by nice people—is that it obligates me to be nice in return, rather than truthful. I am expected to come closer to the racists. Be nicer to them. Coddle them.”
― I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
― I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
“When you're born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire. But it's not.”
― Aloha from Hell
― Aloha from Hell
“What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination. When the sky outside is merely pink, and the rooftops merely black: that photographic mind which paradoxically tells the truth, but the worthless truth, about the world. It is that synthesizing spirit, that "shaping" force, which prolifically sprouts and makes up its own worlds with more inventiveness than God which I desire. If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning.”
― The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
― The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Tan’s 2025 Year in Books
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