Remy > Recent Status Updates

“I hid in the mansion.” … “It’s rather like being a princess locked in a tower, only the tower is made of money and bereavement, and the dragon keeping you inside it is the unending obsession of everyone else in the world.”

“The nature of hope is curious to me. It can sustain us through the darkest of times. It can buoy us above every reasonable expectation of despair. Yet hope can shatter us just as readily as the darkness can. People refer to it as false hope, but I think that’s misleading, because the feeling itself is painfully true.
It is a teacher ours hope, more precisely. A dangerous one.”

“Kinder hearts are stronger, her mother had once said.”

Page xvi of the introduction:
Quote:
“I read four stories that I cared about, and I like to think that because talent is not the sole preserve of any human group, to read with open curiosity and with emotional hunger is invariably to choose a wide range is stories.”

Page xv of introduction:
Quote :
When I teach writing, I tell my students that it is not so much about “write what you know” as it is about “don’t write what you don’t know.” A subtle difference, but with the latter, one’s work is not constrained by the narrowness of personal experience.”

“It’s not pity,” Eddie says. “And I don’t think I could have a single feeling about you that’s wasted.”

“Well. I think you’re naive, but I’m not in the business of making other people’s decisions. And I suppose you’re only naive once. It’s a pity to have cynics rob you of the chance to be foolish. But I—“ Mail stops talking and suddenly looks very, very tired.

“Want to hear about the awful book I bought at the airport newsstand?” Eddie asks instead. “I feel really petty about it.”
“Yes, please,” Mark says, sounding like a kid who’s been offered a second scoop of ice cream.
Before ten minutes have passed, Mark has committed to buying this book first thing in the morning and reading it immediately so they can be petty about it together tomorrow night

“No, no, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not trying to be cagey. I spent years having to protect my—the person I was with. I had to be careful not to mention him. And the easiest way to avoid mentioning one key detail of your private life is to never mention any details of your private life.” (Mark)

“You ever get furious with yourself for not being able to do something very, very normal?” Mark asks.

“The problem with not talking much is that it frees your brain up to notice things you’d be better off not thinking about. “

“Now that he doesn’t even have that much, […] / He’s angry to be without it, and angry that he couldn’t expect more, and angry not to have anyone to complain to. It’s too much anger, and sometimes it comes out in all the wrong ways, but he can’t explain that to anyone, either.”

“He and Nick have been paying attention to the trials and travails of the city’s new baseball team—Nick because he loves baseball, and Mark because he loves drama. But Mark doesn’t follow the game; a passing familiarity with baseball is something he caught, like the measles, not something he did on purpose.”

xi of preface:

“Wittgenstein used to quote Bishop Butler’s remark that “everything is what it is and not another thing.” There is a piece of Akan wordplay with the same moral “Esono ɛsono, ɛsono sosono,” . . . which being translated reads “The elephant is one thing and the worm another.” “

ix of the preface:

“one is bound to be formed—morally, aesthetically, politically, religiously—by the range of lives one has known.”

Influences and connections mentioned in the preface:

African, European, American

Gaberone, Lagos, England, Botswana, Norway, Ghana, New Haven-Connecticut, Yorubaland

Asante, Hausa, Ananse, Lebanese, French, Kenyan, Thai, Norwegian, Nigerian, Ghanaian, Kumasi

Baptists, Copts, Catholics, Methodists, Anglicans, Muslim

“Shri Rama said something very interesting at my wedding, and Arjun would remind me of it constantly: we can help pave the roads of those around us, but we can’t choose their direction. Even trying is against the laws of samsara.”

“It’s finished, Sita. It’s over,” he said. “The walls have crumbled and you’re asking why instead of trying to rebuild. Your sister is in the next room. She’s what’s left, and that’s no small thing. She’s carrying a child.” -Arjun to Sita

“Inside, I choked down the feelings that threatened to overwhelm me. I would survive this. I’d survived worse things. After all, I was bamboo, and bamboo bends. It doesn’t break.” - Sita