Trần Quý

“Yesterday is
two days before tomorrow
the day after two days ago”
― Haruki Murakami

“Ta sợ sau khi đạt được ước mơ rồi thì không còn gì thúc đẩy mình tiếp tục sống nữa. Song sợ bị thất vọng não nề, nên ta chọn cách chỉ mơ thôi.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

“Ấy không, Nishioka lơ đễnh lắc đầu. Kì vọng quá lớn vào đối phương là điều không thể tránh khỏi, nhất là khi mình đối với họ toàn tâm toàn ý. Cũng giống như việc trên đời có mấy ai chẳng thiết tha trông đợi bất kì lời hồi đáp nào từ người thương của họ?”
― Shion Miura, The Great Passage

“But I think that this apparent desire to be a victim cloaks an opposing dread: that Americans are in truth profoundly, neurotically terrified of being victims, ever, in any way. This fear is conceivably one reason we initiated the particularly vicious and gratuitous Iraq war―because Americans can't tolerate feeling like victims, even briefly. I think it is the reason that every boob with a hangnail has been clogging the courts and haunting talk shows across the land for the last twenty years, telling his/her "story" and trying to get redress. Whatever the suffering is, it's not to be endured, for God's sake, not felt and never, ever accepted. It's to be triumphed over. And because some things cannot be triumphed over unless they are first accepted and endured, because, indeed, some things cannot be triumphed over at all, the "story" must be told again and again in endless pursuit of a happy ending. To be human is finally to be a loser, for we are all fated to lose our carefully constructed sense of self, our physical strength, our health, our precious dignity, and finally our lives. A refusal to tolerate this reality is a refusal to tolerate life, and art based on the empowering message and positive image is just such a refusal.”
― Mary Gaitskill, Somebody with a Little Hammer: Essays