Julia

“In your world of classical art pieces are revered for the artist's skill of execution - that is, how deftly he places the brush to canvas or the chisel to stone. In modern art, however, masterpieces are often more about the idea than the execution.”
― Dan Brown, Origin

“Anthropologists will tell you that oral cultures understand the past differently; for them, their histories don't need to be accurate so much as they need to validate the community's understanding of itself. So it wouldn't be correct to say that their histories are unreliable; their histories do what they need to do.
Right now each of us is a private oral culture. We rewrite our pasts to suit our needs and support the story we tell about ourselves. With our memories we are all guilty of a Whig interpretation of our personal histories, seeing our former selves as steps toward our glorious present selves.”
― Ted Chiang, The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling

“If our lives are tales that Allah tells, then we are the audience as well as players, and it is by living these tales that we receive their lessons.”
― Ted Chiang, The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate

“You can't complain about feeling bad, about being depressed, if you aren't trying to sleep, trying to eat, trying to care about yourself.”
― Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation