Hayley Ricks

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The Belly of Paris
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The Innocents Abr...
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  (page 27 of 560)
Mar 28, 2026 07:30PM

 
Progressive Steps...
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George Saunders
“Sometimes life feels a certain way that we call “absurd”: nothing matters, all efforts are for naught, everything seems random and perverse, positive intention is perpetually thwarted. This stance communicates darkness and edginess, which can feel like wisdom. But we don’t live as if life is absurd; we live as if it has meaning and makes sense. We live (or try to) by kindness, loyalty, friendship, aspiration to improvement, believing the best of other people. We assume causality and continuity of logic. And we find, through living, that our actions do matter, very much. We can be a good parent or a bad parent, we can drive safely or like a maniac. Our minds can feel clean and positive and clear or polluted and negative. To have an ambition and pursue it feels healthy. A life without earnest striving is a nightmare. (When desire vanishes from a normal life, that is called depression.)”
George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

E.M. Forster
“The Garden of Eden," pursued Mr. Emerson, still descending, "which you place in the past, is really yet to come. We shall enter it when we no longer despise our bodies.”
E.M. Forster, A Room with a View

Rick Rubin
“Art is choosing to do something skilfully,
caring about the details,
bringing all of yourself
to make the finest work you can.
It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorfification,
and need for approval.”
Rick Rubin, The Creative Act: A Way of Being

George Saunders
“That’s all poetry is, really: something odd, coming out. Normal speech, overflowed. A failed attempt to do justice to the world. The poet proves that language is inadequate by throwing herself at the fence of language and being bound by it. Poetry is the resultant bulging of the fence.”
George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

George Saunders
“It’s hard to get any beauty at all into a story. If and when we do, it might not be the type of beauty we’ve always dreamed of making. But we have to take whatever beauty we can get, however we can get it.”
George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain

25x33 TS Book Club — 9 members — last activity Feb 13, 2020 10:45AM
Hopefully we can share recommendations for readings outside of the club here!
year in books
Bridget...
137 books | 9 friends

Amy Neth
256 books | 23 friends

trisha
374 books | 3 friends

Grace P...
239 books | 5 friends

Claire ...
523 books | 34 friends

Sarah G...
260 books | 241 friends

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Sophie ...
469 books | 69 friends

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