Chris

“Cynical stories can become self-fulfilling, but hopeful ones can, too. By feeling--and wielding--the power of trust instead, we can transform cynicism's vicious cycle into a more virtuous one.”
― Jamil Zaki, Hope for Cynics: The Surprising Science of Human Goodness

“This dramatic tension between the primal desire to be connected to others and the hardwired instinct to protect ourselves from others' possibly hurtful attacks explains why relationships are so hard.”
― Donna Hicks, Dignity: The Essential Role It Plays in Resolving Conflict

“Not all little girls are born murderers, but every woman becomes one. Most simply destroy pieces of themselves - their dreams, their desires, their right to speak to whom and what they please. I kill men instead.”
― Heather M. Herrman, Lady or the Tiger

“It was one of the hardest adjustments for Kinnick, owning a cell phone again. It was like a nosy neighbor with a constant supply of scary news, a pocketful of drip-drip dread and festering fear. He was glad to be able to call Bethany, but the thing was a constant delivery system for terrifying developments from all over the country, from around an overheated, overpopulated planet. Technology, as he saw it, had finally succeeded in shrinking the globe, so much so that every news story felt dangerous and personal, every war a threat to his family, every firestorm, hurricane, and melting ice cap a local disaster, the seas boiling up around them, every cynical political and legal maneuver part of the same rotten fabric--and half the country somehow seeing it exactly the opposite way.”
― Jess Walter, So Far Gone