“It's a nice big fat philosophical question, about: how do you get through? Sometimes you don't survive whole, you just survive in part. But the grandeur of life is that attempt. It's not about that solution. It is about being as fearless as one can, and behaving as beautifully as one can, under completely impossible circumstances. It's that, that makes it elegant. Good is just more interesting, more complex, more demanding. Evil is silly, it may be horrible, but at the same time it's not a compelling idea. It's predictable. It needs a tuxedo, it needs a headline, it needs blood, it needs fingernails. It needs all that costume in order to get anybody's attention. But the opposite, which is survival, blossoming, endurance, those things are just more compelling intellectually if not spiritually, and they certainly are spiritually. This is a more fascinating job. We are already born, we are going to die. So you have to do something interesting that you respect in between.”
―
―
“I am staring out of the window in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. Then a friend, a fellow artist, calls... he asks, ‘How are you?' and instead of ‘Oh, fine... and you?', I blurt out the truth: ‘Not well. Not only am I depressed, I can’t seem to work, to write; it’s as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything... I’ve never felt this way before…' I am about to explain with further detail when he interrupts, shouting: ‘No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work... not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job.' I felt foolish the rest of the morning, especially when I recalled the artists who had done their work in gulags, prison cells, hospital beds; who did their work while hounded, exiled, reviled, pilloried. And those who were executed... this is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.”
―
―
“Hope isn’t the same thing as happiness. You don’t need to be happy to be hopeful. You need instead to accept the unknowability of the future, and that there are versions of that future which could be better than the present. Hope, in its simplest form, is the acceptance of possibility.”
― The Comfort Book
― The Comfort Book
“No longer was my world one of brave heroes; I was learning all too swiftly the women's pain that throbbed unspoken through the tales of their feats.”
― Ariadne
― Ariadne
“Your worth is you. Your worth is your presence. Your worth is right there. Your worth isn't something you earn. Your worth isn't something you buy. Your worth isn't something you gain through status on popularity or stomach crunches or having a really chic kitchen. Your worth is your existence. You were born with worth, as all babies are, and that worth doesn't disappear simply because you have grown a little older. You are a human, being.”
― The Comfort Book
― The Comfort Book
Miscellany Pages - Book Group with Variety - Expand Your Reading Horizons
— 4 members
— last activity Sep 23, 2018 10:37AM
No genre discrimination allowed! If you want to spice up your reading life, join this group for discussions and reviews on a huge variety of books. Wh ...more
EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club
— 28822 members
— last activity 44 minutes ago
Click HERE for the latest group announcements. "It reminded me of ____ but in space." "I read ____ in high school, and actually liked it." "It's ...more
Our Shared Shelf
— 222796 members
— last activity 1 hour, 54 min ago
OUR SHARED SHELF IS CURRENTLY DORMANT AND NOT MANAGED BY EMMA AND HER TEAM. Dear Readers, As part of my work with UN Women, I have started reading ...more
OffBeatBooks’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at OffBeatBooks’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Classics, Contemporary, Crime, Ebooks, Fiction, Historical fiction, History, Mystery, Poetry, Psychology, Romance, Suspense, and Thriller
Polls voted on by OffBeatBooks
Lists liked by OffBeatBooks





































