Soren

“Shared suffering, she’d found, was no guarantee of intimacy.”
― Michel Faber, Under the Skin

“I am a confused animal who fears the idea of progress, not because I do not wish to progress, but because I fear how those in control define progress.”
― William Pauley III, Hearers of the Constant Hum

“More than anything else, we have to imagine a different kind of life, a different way of living. We have to reject the shiny, shallow future that will never come, and locate ourselves in the current, flawed moment. Despite what we've been taught, we are neither eternally blessed nor eternally damned. We are blessed and damned and everything in between. Instead of toggling between victory and defeat, we have to learnt to live in the middle, in the gray area, where a real life can unfold in its own time. We have to breathe in reality instead of distracting ourselves around the clock. We have to open our eyes and our hearts to each other. We have to connect with what already is, who we already are, what we already have.”
― Heather Havrilesky, What If This Were Enough?: Essays

“We wait and think and doubt and hate. How does it make you feel? The overwhelming feeling is rage. We hate ourself for being unable to be other than what we are. Unable to be better. We feel rage. The feelings must be followed. It doesn't matter whether you're an ideologue or a sensualist, you follow the stimuli thinking that they're your signposts to the promised land. But they are nothing of the kind. What they are is rocks to navigate the past, each on your brush against, ripping you a little more open and they are always more on the horizon. But you can't face up to the that, so you force yourself to believe the bullshit of those you instinctively know are liars and you repeat those lies to yourself and to others, hoping that by repeating them often and fervently enough you'll attain the godlike status we accord those who tell the lies most frequently and most passionately. But you never do, and even if you could, you wouldn't value it, you'd realise that nobody believes in heroes any more. We know that they only want to sell us something we don't really want and keep from us what we really do need. Maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we're getting in touch with our condition at last. It's horrible how we always die alone, but no worse than living alone.”
― Irvine Welsh, Filth