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Sheryl
https://www.goodreads.com/sherylchen
“When you're given an opportunity to change your life, be ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen. The world doesn't give things, you take things.”
― The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
― The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
“And we hate people for making mistakes so much more than we love them for doing good that the easiest way to live is to do nothing, say nothing, and love no one.”
― Beautiful World, Where Are You
― Beautiful World, Where Are You
“Our Vietnamese a time capsule, a mark of where your education ended. Ma, to speak in our mother tongue is to speak only partially in Vietnamese, but entirely in war.
That night I promise myself I'd never be wordless when you needed me to speak for you. So I began my career as our family's official interpreter. From then on, I would fill in our blanks, our silences, our stutters, whenever I could. I code switched. I took off our language and wore my English, like a mask, so that others would see my face, and therefore yours.
It's true that, in Vietnamese, we rarely say I love you, and when we do, it is almost always in English. Care and love, for us, are pronounced clearly through service...”
― On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
That night I promise myself I'd never be wordless when you needed me to speak for you. So I began my career as our family's official interpreter. From then on, I would fill in our blanks, our silences, our stutters, whenever I could. I code switched. I took off our language and wore my English, like a mask, so that others would see my face, and therefore yours.
It's true that, in Vietnamese, we rarely say I love you, and when we do, it is almost always in English. Care and love, for us, are pronounced clearly through service...”
― On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
“When you find that rare person who really knows who you are and they still don't love you... I was burning.”
― Daisy Jones & The Six
― Daisy Jones & The Six
“It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.
But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.
We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”
― The Midnight Library
Sheryl’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Sheryl’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Sheryl
Lists liked by Sheryl