Rachel Lee

“History is often imagined as a series of events, unfolding one after the other like a sequence of falling dominoes. But most human experiences are processes, not events. Divorce may be an event, but it almost always results from a lengthy process—and the same could be said for birth, or battle, or infection. Similarly, much of what some imagine as dichotomous turns out to be spectral, from neurodivergence to sexuality, and much of what appears to be the work of individuals turns out to be the work of broad collaborations. We love a narrative of the great individual whose life is shot through with major events and who turns out to be either a villain or a hero, but the world is inherently more complex than the narratives we impose upon it, just as the reality of experience is inherently more complex than the language we use to describe that reality.”
― John Green, Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

“is easier to live in the world without being of the world than to live in the church without being of the church. —Henri J. M. Nouwen”
― Philip Yancey, Where the Light Fell

“It is astounding, in truth, how much of academia’s perceived resource scarcity is artificially constructed.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel

“We have to die to get their pity. We have to die for them to find us noble. Our deaths are thus great acts of rebellion, a wretched lament that highlights their inhumanity. Our deaths become their battle cry. I don't want to be their Imoinda, their Oroonoko. I don't want to be their tragic, lovely lacquer figure. I want to live.”
― R.F. Kuang, Babel