Beautiful World, Where Are You

by Sally Rooney

But it also strikes me that the idea of ‘conservatism’ is in itself false, because nothing can be conserved, as such – time moves in one direction only, I mean.

And if that means the human species is going to die out, isn’t it in a way a nice reason to die out, the nicest reason you can imagine? Because when we should have been reorganising the distribution of the world’s resources and transitioning collectively to a sustainable economic model, we were worrying about sex and friendship instead. Because we loved each other too much and found each other too interesting. And I love that about humanity, and in fact it’s the very reason I root for us to survive – because we are so stupid about each other.

who had ever behaved somewhat poorly in a sexual context dropped dead tomorrow, there would be like eleven men left alive.

desiring for others not what I want for myself but the way I want for myself.