Madi > Recent Status Updates

"[...] you feel the way the boat moves? That's the sea. That's real. You smell the salt in the air? You feel the sunlight on your skin? That's all real. You see all of us together? That's real. Life is wonderful. It's a gift to be alive, to see the sun and breathe the air. And there isn't really anything else."

"Human beings are so destructive," Malcolm said. "I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase."

"All your life people will tell you things. And most of the time, probable ninety-five percent of the time, what they'll tell you will be wrong."

“In evolutionary theory, this is called the Red Queen phenomenon,” Malcolm said. “Because in Alice in Wonderland the Red Queen tells Alice she has to run as fast as she can just to stay where she is.”

“In evolutionary theory, this is called the Red Queen phenomenon,” Malcolm said. “Because in Alice in Wonderland the Red Queen tells Alice she has to run as fast as she can just to stay where she is.”

"I did not have to be a Freudian scholar to understand my dream; it was all too clear. Had I been trying to save a monster, trying to protect something or someone who was too dangerous and evil to survive?"

"If, as many people believe today, Ted Bundy took lives, he also saved
lives. I know he did, because I was there when he did it."

"I'm sorry," she said.
She meant, I'm sorry this happened. I'm sorry I didn't see you were going through this. I'm sorry I maybe haven't loved you the way you deserve to be loved. I'm sorry that when we faced our first crisis it showed up everything that was wrong in our marriage instead of everything that was right. I'm sorry we tuned on each other instead of to each other.

“Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus, founders of theminimalists.com, created the 20/20 theory, proving that almost any “just in case” item that you get rid of can be replaced for less than twenty dollars in less than twenty minutes. You usually don’t have to replace it, but knowing that should alleviate some of the anxiety of letting go. ”

“Remembering yourself, connecting with your heart, making you—these are all surprising results of getting simple. You used to know who you were, but all the stuff, obligations, and craziness of life got in the way and clouded your vision. Getting rid of everything that doesn’t matter allows you to remember who you are. Simplicity doesn’t change who you are, it brings you back to who you are.”

“The wandering bands of storytelling Sapiens were the most important and most destructive force the animal kingdom had ever produced.”

“The wandering bands of storytelling Sapiens were the most important and most destructive force the animal kingdom had ever produced.”

“An underwater tunnel!” he cried, “connecting the two seas! Who ever heard of such a thing?”

“Ned, my friend,” replied Conseil, “who had ever heard of the Nautilus? Nobody, but it existed all the same. So don’t shrug your shoulder and try to brush off ideas just by claiming nobody’s ever heard of them.”

I wanted to say that my childhood had also been a mess. But a different kind of mess. It seemed neat and orderly when I was growing up. It was only later that I learned how messy it had been.

Some questions will ruin you if you are denied the answer long enough.

If you want to slow down time, this theory holds: If you want to make the days last, do something different. Travel to exotic locales. Take a class.

While you’re alive, you should feel alive.

“When you think you have all the time in the world, hanging up on a loved one seems fine, something to fix later.”

“Where’s it go, the time?”
“Into somebody else’s gas tank.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”

“Of the two of us, he’s been wronged by life, so life, and especially me, owed him something. Let’s just say I’m not very good at owing anyone anything.”

“Some people lived lives of perpetual hardship. Endured rather than lived.
Good people.”

“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt”

"It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever."

“Think of every beauty tip for looking one’s best: good sleep, plenty of water, no stress. Getting arrested means the opposite of all that.”

“And all knew the truth: Hoard food and it rots. Hoard money and you rot. Hoard power and the government rots.”

"The White Mountains loomed on every horizon, never changing. If only she could be like that, take what life threw at her and not flinch."

I love books like this one with simple progression. No switching back and forth between chapters/characters. It really makes the story flow.

"We all have an old knot in the heart we wish to loosen and untie."