“I wish I had the courage not to fight and doubt everything... I wish, just once, I could say, 'This. This is good enough. Just because I choose it.”
― Choke
― Choke
“I like it when somebody gets excited about something. It's nice.”
― The Catcher in the Rye
― The Catcher in the Rye
“He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.”
― Everything is Illuminated
― Everything is Illuminated
“You don't know how to talk to people you don't like. Don't love, really. You can't live in the world with such strong likes and dislikes.”
― Franny and Zooey
― Franny and Zooey
“Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant.”
― The Year of Magical Thinking
― The Year of Magical Thinking
Gillian’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Gillian’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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