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Justine Paradis
https://www.goodreads.com/justbouton
to-read
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read (379)
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earth (66)
essays (64)
history (49)
classic (40)
favorites (35)
currently-reading (4)
read (379)
did-not-finish (0)
earth (66)
essays (64)
history (49)
classic (40)
favorites (35)
how-to-live
(34)
parts (32)
being-a-woman (31)
sci-fi-fantasy (30)
art (21)
speculative (21)
journalism (20)
poetry (20)
race (19)
parts (32)
being-a-woman (31)
sci-fi-fantasy (30)
art (21)
speculative (21)
journalism (20)
poetry (20)
race (19)
“The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”
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“What a gulf between the self which experiences and the self which describes experience.”
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“What do we want from our mothers when we are children? Complete submission. Oh, it's very nice and rational and respectable to say that a woman has every right to her life, to her ambitions, to her needs, and so on--it's what I've always demanded myself--but as a child, no, the truth is it's a war of attrition, rationality doesn't come into it, not one bit, all you want from your mother is that she once and for all admit that she is your mother and only your mother, and that her battle with the rest of life is over. She has to lay down arms and come to you. And if she doesn't do it, then it's really a war, and it was a war between my mother and me. Only as an adult did I come to truly admire her--especially in the last, painful years of her life--for all that she had done to claw some space in this world for herself.”
― Swing Time
― Swing Time
“I’m grateful for being here, for being able to think, for being able to see, for being able to taste, for appreciating love – for knowing that it exists in a world so rife with vulgarity, with brutality and violence, and yet love exists. I’m grateful to know that it exists.”
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“Immigration, exile, being uprooted and made a pariah may be the most effective way yet devised to impress on an individual the arbitrary nature of his or her own existence. Who needed a shrink of a guru when everyone we met asked us who we were the moment we opned our mouths and they heard the accent?
The truth is, we had no simple answers. Being rattled around in freight trains, open trucks, and ratty ocean-liners, we ended up being a puzzle even to ourselves. At first, that was hard to take; then we got used to the idea. We began to savor it, to enjoy it. Being nobody struck me personally as being far more interesting than being somebody. The streets were full of these "somebodys" putting on confident airs. Half the time I envied them; half the time I looked down on them with pity. I knew something they didn't, something hard to come by unless history gives you a good kick in the ass: how superfluous and insignificant in any grand scheme mere individuals are. And how pitiless are those who have no understanding that this could be their fate too.”
― Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss
The truth is, we had no simple answers. Being rattled around in freight trains, open trucks, and ratty ocean-liners, we ended up being a puzzle even to ourselves. At first, that was hard to take; then we got used to the idea. We began to savor it, to enjoy it. Being nobody struck me personally as being far more interesting than being somebody. The streets were full of these "somebodys" putting on confident airs. Half the time I envied them; half the time I looked down on them with pity. I knew something they didn't, something hard to come by unless history gives you a good kick in the ass: how superfluous and insignificant in any grand scheme mere individuals are. And how pitiless are those who have no understanding that this could be their fate too.”
― Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss
Justine’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Justine’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,835 books
|
12 friends
413 books
|
10 friends
304 books
|
10 friends
155 books
|
112 friends
1,045 books
|
188 friends
1 book
|
58 friends
65 books
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116 friends
60 books
|
77 friends
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