Rob

“Better pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age.”
― James Joyce, The Dead

“Poetry and prayer put ideas in people’s heads that got them killed, distracting them from the ruthless mechanism of the world.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad

“Only then (nearly out the door, so to speak) did I realize how unspeakably beautiful all of this was, how precisely engineered for our pleasure, and saw that I was on the brink of squandering a wondrous gift, the gift of being allowed, every day, to wander this vast sensual paradise, this grand marketplace lovingly stocked with every sublime thing.”
― George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo

“Cora didn't know what optimistic meant. She asked the other girls that night if they were familiar with the word. None of them had heard it before. She decided that it meant trying.”
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad