Amri Hakim

“I have so much I want to live for. I want to see sunsets and watch the seasons change. I want to have fun and enjoy my life. I want to read, and travel... and I want to live. But part of living means not living in fear, Miller. Part of living means doing what's difficult, what's frightening, what's right, eben if it puts you in the path of danger. I want to live, damn it, not be shoved onto some dusty shelf or locked inside a closet for my own safety.”
― Philip Fracassi, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre

“At the time, he'd thought to himself, quite philosophically, that getting older was nothing but a series of slow deaths of the people we once were, and how, with each death of our past selves, those held memories of past lives also died. Not forgotten, perhaps, but withered and lifeless. Colorless. Muted by time, made insignificant by the damning present and a relentless, bullying future.”
― Philip Fracassi, The Autumn Springs Retirement Home Massacre

“When asked about the difficulties of sculpture, Michelangelo said, “It is easy. You just chip away all the stone that isn’t David.” It’s simple to cut things out of a life. You break up with a shitty partner, quit eating bread, delete the Twitter app. You cut it out, and the shape of what’s actually killing you clarifies a little. The whole Abrahamic world invests itself in this promise: Don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t fuck or steal or kill, and you’ll be a good person. Eight of the ten commandments are about what thou shalt not. But you can live a whole life not doing any of that stuff and still avoid doing any good. That’s the whole crisis. The rot at the root of everything. The belief that goodness is built on a constructed absence, not-doing. That belief corrupts everything, has everyone with any power sitting on their hands. A rich man goes a whole day without killing a single homeless person and so goes to sleep content in his goodness. In another world, he’s buying crates of socks and Clif bars and tents, distributing them in city centers. But for him, abstinence reigns.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“When one thing leaves your house or heart, it makes room for another to take its place. This is why it’s unwise to make solid statues inside. A statue takes up space without moving, without flowing, without growing.”
― Josh Malerman, Incidents Around the House