Acceptance (Southern Reach, #3)

by Jeff VanderMeer

A quiet click of the door, then whistling into the wind like an idiot as soon as he’d taken a few steps—thanking the God who’d made him, in the end, so lucky, even if in such a delayed and unexpected way. Some things came to you late, but late was better than never.

People who asked questions didn’t necessarily like being asked questions. “What’s wrong with asking questions?” “Nothing.” Everything. Once the questions snuck in, whatever had been certain became uncertain. Questions opened the way for doubt.

There’s a place that as a kid you called the farthestmost point—the most distant you could get, the place that when you stood there you could pretend you were the only person in the world. Being there made you wary, but it also put a kind of peace into you, a sense of security.

She knew where it would all lead, what it always led to in human beings—a decision about what to do. What are we going to do? Where do we go from here? How do we move forward? What is our mission now? As if purpose could solve everything, could take the outlines of what was missing and by sheer will invoke it, make it appear, bring it back to life.

“The only solution to the environment is neglect, which requires our collapse.”

“If you don’t know your passion, it confuses your mind, not your heart.”