Do Not Say We Have Nothing

by Madeleine Thien

The present, Sparrow seemed to say, is all we have, yet it is the one thing we will never learn to hold in our hands.

“The only life that matters is in your mind. The only truth is the one that lives invisibly, that waits even after you close the book. Silence, too, is a kind of music. Silence will last.”

“Nine lives, one death,”

‘Because music is nothing. It is nothing and yet it belongs to me. Despite everything that’s happened, it’s myself that I believe in.’

“I’m sure you know that, without obsession, there is no life’s work. But where does this attentiveness come from? Have you asked yourself? Surely it’s what we each carry, in greater and greater quantity as we age, remembrance.” He used the word jì yì, which has two meanings: (to recall, record) and (art).

How can you ignore this sharp awl that pierces your heart? If you yearn for things outside yourself, you will never obtain what you are seeking.

Stokowski’s transcription of Bach. The chorale preludes. ‘For every vital movement in the world around us, there is a corresponding movement within us, a feeling.’”

Today, the afternoon wind had an unkind bite, April could not let go of winter.

Same bed, different dreams.

“Beauty leaves its imprints on the mind. Throughout history, there have been many moments that can never be recovered, but you and I know that they existed.”