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“I believe in the resistance as I believe there can be no light without shadow; or rather, no shadow unless there is also light.”
― The Handmaid’s Tale
― The Handmaid’s Tale
“Love him,’ said Jacques, with vehemence, ‘love him and let him love you. Do you think anything else under heaven really matters? And how long, at the best, can it last, since you are both men and still have everywhere to go? Only five minutes, I assure you, only five minutes, and most of that, helas! in the dark. And if you think of them as dirty, then they will be dirty— they will be dirty because you will be giving nothing, you will be despising your flesh and his. But you can make your time together anything but dirty, you can give each other something which will make both of you better—forever—if you will not be ashamed, if you will only not play it safe.’ He paused, watching me, and then looked down to his cognac. ‘You play it safe long enough,’ he said, in a different tone, ‘and you’ll end up trapped in your own dirty body, forever and forever and forever—like me.”
― Giovanni’s Room
― Giovanni’s Room
“I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up—many people feel small, because they’re small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.”
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“I also knew you wouldn't remember this trip, because you're only five years old, and our pediatrician had told us that children don't starting building memories of things until after they turn six. When I realized that, that I was ten and you were only five, I thought, fuck. But of course I didn't say so out loud. I just thought, fuck, silently, to myself. I realized that I'd remember everything and you maybe wouldn't remember anything. I needed to find a way to help you remember, even if it was only through things I documented for you, for the future. And that's how I became a documentarist and a documentarian at the same time. (p 213)”
― Lost Children Archive
― Lost Children Archive
“That was how I met Giovanni. I think we connected the instant that we met. And remain connected still, in spite of our later separation de corps, despite the fact that Giovanni will be rotting soon in unhallowed ground near Paris. Until I die there will be those moments, moments seeming to rise up out of the ground like Macbeth's witches, when his face will come before me, that face in all its changes, when the exact timbre of his voice and tricks of his speech will nearly burst my ears, when his smell will overpower my nostrils. Sometimes, in the days which are coming - God grant me the grace to live them: in the glare of the grey morning, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw and red, hair tangled and damp from my stormy sleep, facing, over coffee and cigarette smoke, last night's impenetrable, meaningless boy who will shortly rise and vanish like the smoke, I will see Giovanni again, as he was that night, so vivid, so winning, all of the light of that gloomy tunnel trapped around his head.”
― Giovanni’s Room
― Giovanni’s Room
Denise’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Denise’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
592 books
|
46 friends
1,339 books
|
7,375 friends
281 books
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30 friends
440 books
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163 friends
91 books
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6 friends
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