Quote Dump for The Midnight Library

[Steph]

“I want to live and feel all the shades, tones, and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life.”

It’s so interesting & eery seeing the Sylvia Plath quote at the beginning knowing her fate. I didn’t fully appreciate the complexity of Haig opening the book with this quote it in my first read through.

[Monica]

"She stepped outside, wondering whether a life could really be judged from just a few minutes on a Tuesday. Or maybe that was all you needed."

"... ultimately, she didn't deserve to be happy."

"She had shrunk for him, but he still hadn't found the space he needed."

After Nora's metaphor about being stuck in a maze, but knowing other people are finding their way out:
"And you don't resent them. But you do resent yourself for not having their ability to work it all out."

"I only know today. I know a lot about today. But I don't know what happens tomorrow." - the library version of Mrs. Elm

Nora feels like she will never find a version of life in the library that she loves because "Every possible life still has me in it." It's a perfect illustration of her self-loathing.

"Sometimes regrets aren't based on facts at all. Sometimes regrets are just ... a load of bullshit." - the library version of Mrs. Elm.

"... sometimes the only way to learn is to live." - the library version of Mrs. Elm

"You can choose choices but not outcomes." - the library version of Mrs. Elm

"To be a human was to continually dumb the world down into an understandable story that keeps things simple." There's a difference between this is what happened, and this is the story I'm telling myself.

"You can have everything and feel nothing."

"Maybe there are no easy paths. Just paths."

"She realized that she hadn't tried to end her life because she was miserable, but because she had convinced herself that there was no way out of her misery."

"We don't have to do everything in order to be everything, because we are already infinite."

"The prison wasn't the place, but the perspective."

[Steph]

Monica wrote: ""She stepped outside, wondering whether a life could really be judged from just a few minutes on a Tuesday. Or maybe that was all you needed."

"... ultimately, she didn't deserve to be happy."

"..."

Such good choices! I'll definitely be talking about some of these in the live.