Leah Angstman > Leah's Quotes

“One of the biggest sicknesses this world has is expectation. We all expect other people to be a certain way or to do a certain thing. Most people, they spend their whole lives under the wants of other people.”
― Eric Shonkwiler

“You're just now getting desperate. When you're really down you won't have anything to say about pride....Pride's for rich folk.”
― Eric Shonkwiler, Above All Men

“He wanted to miss his wife, to be doing the simple thing, the heroic thing, to be ordered. He wanted to be there to wish he were home.”
― Eric Shonkwiler, Above All Men

“Whatever he pays me, it won't last longer than the land would. That land will always be there, for me and you, even your kids. The money would only be good for a little while. Things are tough now, but they'll turn around.”
― Eric Shonkwiler, Above All Men

“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death--ought to decide, indeed, to earn one's death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible for life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time