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“When I was twenty-three I began seeing a psychotherapist because I couldn’t bear the idea that, after the end of an affair, all our shared memories might be expunged from the mind of the other, that they might no longer exist outside my own belief they’d happened. I couldn’t accept the possibility of being the only one who would remember everything about those moments as carefully as I tried to remember them. My life, which exists mostly in the memories of the people I’ve known, is deteriorating at the rate of physiological decay. A color, a sensation, the way someone said a single word—soon it will all be gone. In a hundred and fifty years no one alive will ever have known me. Being forgotten like that, entering that great and ongoing blank, seems more like death than death.”
― Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
― Ongoingness: The End of a Diary
“Nobody likes to be understood without warning.”
― The Italian Teacher
― The Italian Teacher
“There are some moments in life that are like pivots around which your existence turns—small intuitive flashes, when you know you have done something correct for a change, when you think you are on the right track. I watched a pale dawn streak the cliffs with Day-glo and realized this was one of them. It was a moment of pure, uncomplicated confidence—and lasted about ten seconds.”
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
― Tracks: A Woman's Solo Trek Across 1700 Miles of Australian Outback
“I hate endings. Just detest them. Beginnings are definitely the most exciting, middles are perplexing and endings are a disaster. … The temptation towards resolution, towards wrapping up the package, seems to me a terrible trap. Why not be more honest with the moment? The most authentic endings are the ones which are already revolving towards another beginning. That’s genius.”
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“And I recognized then the process by which I had always attempted difficult things. I had simply not allowed myself to think of the consequences, but had closed my eyes, jumped in, and before I knew where I was, it was impossible to renege. I was basically a dreadful coward, I knew that about myself. The only way I could overcome this was to trick myself with that other self, who lived in dream and fantasy and who was annoyingly lackadaisical and unpractical. All passion, no sense, no order, no instinct for self-preservation. That’s what I had done, and now that cowardly self had discovered an unburnt bridge by which to return to the past. As Renata Adler writes in Speedboat: I think when you are truly stuck, when you have stood still in the same spot for too long, you throw a grenade in exactly the spot you were standing in, and jump, and pray. It is the momentum of last resort.”
― Tracks: One Woman's Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback
― Tracks: One Woman's Journey Across 1,700 Miles of Australian Outback
Emily’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Emily’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
983 books
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666 books
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59 friends
553 books
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1,217 friends
4,282 books
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248 friends
666 books
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78 friends
247 books
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16 friends
305 books
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114 friends
1,283 books
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170 friends
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