Jools

“When these early people looked at a stone, they did not see an inert, unpromising rock. It embodied strength, permanence, solidity and an absolute mode of being that was quite different from the vulnerable human state. Its very otherness made it holy.”
― Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth

“Perhaps I am not so wise as you would have me, for all my years in this world. I do not know what you should choose. Every time you take one path, you must live with the memory of the other: of a life left unchosen. Decide as seems best, one course or the other; each way will have its bitter with its sweet.”
“That is not advice,” she said. The wind blew her hair against his face.
“It is all I have,” he said.”
― Katherine Arden, The Girl in the Tower

“As for history, we are living in its ruins. And as for biographies, we are living with the consequences of all the decisions ever made in them. I tend not to read them for pleasure. It's not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination.'
'But romances aren't real, and surely never were. Doesn't that take away some of the savour?'
'What an interesting choice of words. "Not real, and never were." Could there be any more appropriate literature for men of our profession? Why are you always so averse to fiction, when we've made it our meal-ticket?'
'I live in the real world,' said Locke, 'and my methods are of the real world. They are, just as you say, a profession. A practicality, not some romantic whim.”
― Scott Lynch, Red Seas Under Red Skies

“I had thought fermentation was controlled death. Left alone, a head of cabbage molds and decomposes. It becomes rotten, inedible. But when brined and stored, the course of its decay is altered. Sugars are broken down to produce lactic acid, which protects it from spoiling. Carbon dioxide is released and the brine acidifies. It ages. Its color and texture transmute. Its flavor becomes tarter, more pungent. It exists in time and transforms. So it is not quite controlled death, because it enjoys a new life altogether.”
― Michelle Zauner, Crying in H Mart