The Great Believers

by Rebecca Makkai

“You get afraid of one thing, and suddenly you’re afraid of everything.” 2015

That they were walking every day through streets where there had been a holocaust, a mass murder of neglect and antipathy, that when they stepped through a pocket of cold air, didn’t they understand it was a ghost, it was a boy the world had spat out?

“You’ll never know anyone’s marriage but your own. And even then, you’ll only know half of it.”

had a way of interacting with the world that was simultaneously selfish and generous—grabbing at beauty and reflecting beauty back.

Stupid men and their stupid violence, tearing apart everything good that was ever built. Why couldn’t you ever just go after your life without tripping over some idiot’s dick?

The thing is, if you stop blaming people and everything’s still crap, the only thing left is to blame the world. And when you blame the whole world, when it seems like the planet doesn’t want you, and if there’s

“If we could just be on earth at the same place and same time as everyone we loved, if we could be born

together and die together, it would be so simple.