31 quotes found
“Patriotism is the belief that not all human lives are worth the same.”
“I want to tie one thousand balloons around my neckand float upwhile slowly dying of happiness.”
“On average, since the urge to kill myself isn't so strong that I actually kill myself, the world is worth living in.”
“does a society exist where it's become acceptable to wear 'helmets' enclosing one's entire head when in public to preempt social interaction”
“Nice" said Paul staring transfixed at Fran's delicate and extreme gaze, like that of a skeleton with eyeballs, or a person with their face peeled off.”
“There was an enjoyment to being alive, he felt, that because of an underlying meaninglessnesslike how a person alone for too long cannot feel comfortable when with others; cannot neglect that under...”
“loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shapeof a helicopter the same size as the helicopterand that's it's only skilland it isn't good enoughbut it's still amazing.”
“sad things are beautiful only from a distancetherefore you just want to get away from themfrom a distance of one hundred and thirty years ....i'm going to distance myself until the world is beautiful”
“As a child, shed always had what she imagined were fascinating thoughts, but didnt ever say them. Once, as a little girl, at recess, she thought that if she ran very fast at a pole and then caught ...”
“It sometimes seemed to him that for love to work, it had to be fair, that he should tell only half the joke, and she the other half. Otherwise, it would not be love, but something completely elsepi...”
“...one had to expect very littlealmost nothingfrom life, Aaron knew, one had to be grateful, not always trying to seize the days like some maniac of living, but to give oneself up, be seized by the...”
“Matt would stare at Andrew for 10 minutes. It's depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat.”
“that was bad; i shouldn't have done thatto prevent you from entering a catatonic statei am going to maintain a calm facial expressionwith crinkly eyes and an overall friendly demeanori believe in a...”
“He wanted to hide by shrinking past zero, through the dot at the end of himself, to a negative size, into an otherworld, where he would find a place in an enormous city, too large to know itself, o...”
“Though shed begun to get a bit fat that winter, it was in February, around when her father found a toy poodle (sitting there, in the side yard, watchful and waiting as a person), and adopted it, th...”
“In the parking lot, she drove and parked in a dark area with no other cars around. She reclined her seat, and listened to music. Outside there were trees, a ditch, a bridge; another parking lot. It...”
“I won, said Chelseas dad, and went to give Chelsea a high-five, but missed, as they were standing too close.My fault, he said. That was my fault.Oh, Chelsea said.And he stepped back a little and tr...”
“Gradually, after being the target a few times of a similar capriciousness, which he discerned as default behavior for most people, and not liking it, Paul learned to not be more generous or enthusi...”
“Everyone is folding boxes. Andrew is folding boxes. If the entire job were to fold boxes people would scream. They would fold, and sometimes scream, existentially, then be dragged into a field and ...”
“It would take her thousands of steps to get anywhere, but she would get there easily, and when she arrived, in the present, it would seem like it had been a single movement that brought her there. ...”
“When he heard laughter, before he could think or feel anything, his heart would already be beating like hed sprinted twenty yards. As the beating slowly normalized hed think of how his heart, unlik...”
“It was spring, not winter or autumn, Paul thought with some lingering confusion. He listened to the layered murmur of wind against leaves, familiarly and gently disorienting as a terrestrial sound ...”