“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.
They were both very shy, and they knew each other slowly, tentatively; they came close and drew apart, they touched and withdrew, neither wishing to impose upon the other more than might be welcomed. Day by day the layers of reserve that protected them dropped away, so that at last they were like many who are extraordinarily shy, each open to the other, unprotected, perfectly and unselfconsciously at ease.
Nearly every afternoon, when his classes were over, he came to her apartment. They made love, and talked, and made love again, like children who did not think of tiring at their play. The spring days lengthened, and they looked forward to the summer.”
― Stoner
They were both very shy, and they knew each other slowly, tentatively; they came close and drew apart, they touched and withdrew, neither wishing to impose upon the other more than might be welcomed. Day by day the layers of reserve that protected them dropped away, so that at last they were like many who are extraordinarily shy, each open to the other, unprotected, perfectly and unselfconsciously at ease.
Nearly every afternoon, when his classes were over, he came to her apartment. They made love, and talked, and made love again, like children who did not think of tiring at their play. The spring days lengthened, and they looked forward to the summer.”
― Stoner
“The thing I don't understand about the suicide person is the people who try to commit suicide, for some reason they don't die, and that's it. They stop trying. Why don't they just keep trying? What's changed? Is their life any better now? No. In fact. it's worse, because now they've found out here's one more thing you stink at. And that's why these people don't succeed in life to begin with. They give up too easy.
I say, pills don't work? Try a rope. Car won't start in the garage? Get a tune-up. There's nothing more rewarding than reaching a goal you've set for yourself.”
― SeinLanguage
I say, pills don't work? Try a rope. Car won't start in the garage? Get a tune-up. There's nothing more rewarding than reaching a goal you've set for yourself.”
― SeinLanguage
“Still, winter is an abstract season: it is low on colors, even in Italy, and big on the imperatives of cold and brief daylight. These things train your eye on the outside with an intensity greater than that of the electric bulb availing you of your own features in the evening. If this season doesn't necessarily quell your nerves, it still subordinates them to your instincts; beauty at low temperatures is beauty.”
―
―
“Once the meaning of suffering had been revealed to us, we refused to minimize or alleviate the camp’s tortures by ignoring them or harboring false illusions and entertaining artificial optimism. Suffering had become a task on which we did not want to turn our backs. We had realized its hidden opportunities for achievement, the opportunities which caused the poet Rilke to write, “Wie viel ist aufzuleiden!” (How much suffering there is to get through!).”
― Man's Search for Meaning
― Man's Search for Meaning
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