Mari

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
― Frank Herbert, Dune

“They were the type of family that camouflaged their wealth in outdoor apparel and camping gear.”
― Ling Ma

“All winter long, I had glimpsed his deeply set habits, his regimented schedule. When I left, he would eat a dinner of leftovers, then continue to work until sleep. Everything revolved, to a fault, around work, around his next book project. If I had lived alone, I would have turned out the same way. It is the thing I have been most afraid of happening, my strictness toward myself calcifying into a lifestyle, my traits ingrown so deeply that my oddness surfaces, apparent to all.”
― Ling Ma, Bliss Montage

“During the years I lived alone, even in my self-imposed solitude there had been a part of myself I was afraid of. I worked too much, as if it were the only thing, to diminishing returns. Left to my own devices, there was a streak of masochism in my single-minded, obsessive habits. I didn't exercise that much, but when I did, it was in gruesome marathons of overexertion. I didn't eat enough, and when I did, it was in wild, sobering feasts, remembering that I even had a body. I made myself sick. Unregulated, I would have eventually destroyed myself. Yet even knowing this didn't motivate me to change my ways.”
― Ling Ma