Đinh Anh Phương

“You won’t understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are—not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving—and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad—or good—it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“chắc là từ giờ đến chết ta không còn có bao giờ được nằm trên cỏ thơm đường Láng để thưởng thức với người vợ tấm mẳn biết nhau từ một đêm mưa rào ở vườn Bách Thảo và chia tay không phải từ lúc đánh Tây mà lại chính vào lúc nước nhà ca hát mừng reo độc lập, tự do, thống nhất!”
― Vũ Bằng, Thương Nhớ Mười Hai

“Nhưng thương nhớ kì lạ lắm. Có những đêm không ngủ, nằm nghe tiếng mưa rơi, tôi cố nhớ lại nét mặt của người thương, mà không hiểu tại sao con mắt, miệng cười và mớ tóc xoã trên hai bờ vai tròn trĩnh lại lu mờ như thể chìm đắm trong khói sóng. Mà trái lại có những kỉ niệm rất bé nhỏ, rất tầm thường lại hiện ra rõ rệt, không suy suyển một li trong trí óc của người nặng nợ lưu li, nằm buồn trong gác nhỏ ngâm câu thơ nhớ vợ.”
― Vũ Bằng

“I’ve often wished—especially when I was younger—that my work was better, that it rose to the level of genius, that I could write well enough to make something worth remembering. But I think that way of imagining art might make individuals too important. Maybe in the end art and life are more like the world’s largest ball of paint. You carefully choose your colors, and then you add your layer as best you can. In time, it gets painted over. The ball gets painted again and again until there is no visible remnant of your paint. And eventually, maybe nobody knows about it except for you. But that doesn’t mean your layer of paint is irrelevant or a failure. You have permanently, if slightly, changed the larger sphere. You’ve made it more beautiful, and more interesting. The world’s largest ball of paint looks nothing like the baseball it used to be, and you’re part of the reason. In the end, that’s what art is for me. You paint the ball, which changes the way someone else thinks about painting the ball, and so on, until some guy overwhelmed with grief and dread drives out to Alexandria, Indiana, to see what beautiful foolishness thousands of people have made together, and feels a hope that cannot be explained or shared except by painting. That guy adds a layer of his own to the ball, one that won’t last but still matters. Art is not only a genius going forth, as James Joyce put it, “to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.” Art is also picking a light blue for your layer of the world’s largest ball of paint, knowing that it will soon be painted over, and painting anyway. I give the world’s largest ball of paint four stars.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet