Trust

by Hernan Diaz

she somehow felt elevated by solitude.

Intimacy can be an unbearable burden for those who, first experiencing it after a lifetime of proud self-sufficiency, suddenly realize it makes their world complete. Finding bliss becomes one with the fear of losing it. They doubt their right to hold someone else accountable for their happiness; they worry that their loved one may find their reverence tedious; they fear their yearning may have distorted their features in ways they cannot see. Thus, as the weight of all these questions and concerns bends them inward, their newfound joy in companionship turns into a deeper expression of the solitude they thought they had left behind.

The future irrupts at all times, wanting to actualize itself in every decision we make; it tries, as hard as it can, to become the past.

And what is choice but a branch of the future grafting itself onto the stem of the present?

“news,” which is how the press refers to decisions made by other people in the recent past.

sycophantic

Every life is organized around a small number of events that either propel us or bring us to a grinding halt. We spend the years between these episodes benefiting or suffering from their consequences until the arrival of the next forceful moment. A man’s worth is established by the number of these defining circumstances he is able to create for himself. He need not always be successful, for there can be great honor in defeat. But he ought to be the main actor in the decisive scenes in his existence, whether they be epic or tragic.

Strange it seemed to them that they should be there because of what dead men had written in old books.”

They were almost doppelgängers, but where one thrived and shone, the other labored in obscurity.

elusive region between reason and feeling

I view it merely as the tangible vehicle through which we conduct commercial transactions.

This makes me experience a closeness with her that the insurmountable distance between us paradoxically accentuates.

he mistakes doubt with depth, hesitation with analysis.

We’d been married for about 2 years before this. An amicable, respectful, exhausting period. Few effortless moments. We cared for each other, but care’s demanding. Did our best to fulfil what we imagined the other’s expectations were, repressed our frustration when we failed, and never allowed ourselves to be pleased when we were the recipients of those same efforts. It’s unsurprising that we should soon slip into politeness. No graceful way out of manners.

understanding that our time apart improved our time together.

Where there’s a ventriloquist, there’s a dummy. The latter word only sounds worse than the former.

For I’ve come to think one is truly married only when one is more committed to one’s vows than the person they refer to.

Quasimodo, deafened by bells, loves ringing them.

Something miraculous + sad about the glass on the table. Water disciplined into a vertical cylinder. The depressing spectacle of our triumph over the elements.

God is the most uninteresting answer to the most interesting questions.

“Imagine the relief of finding out that one is not the one one thought one was”

Impossible to hear my voice as a child. I remember entire conversations but can’t remember what I sounded like.

The terrifying freedom of knowing that nothing, from now on, will become a memory