The Big Book of Exit Strategies Quotes

“I write because I love you enough
to ask for what is terrible: run farther
than your feet can possibly carry your heart.
I love you enough to confess that you will fail
but fail closer to the finish line
than if you lie down when the start guns fires.
And in this way, you will never fail
to be an arch, stepping-stone, bridge
of bone and intellect,
of guts and song. Look
how lively the children step.

Let's nod our heads to their footfalls.
Become backbeat with me
and they will sing the harmonics
we forgot to learn.

Tell me you wouldn't die for that.

Tell me you will live for this.”
― Jamaal May, The Big Book of Exit Strategies

“...I don't know
if it's better to be good at a bad job or bad at a good job,
but there must be some kind of satisfaction
in doing a job so poorly, you are never asked to do it again.
...
I learned that I'd work any job this hard, ache
like this to know that I could always ache for something.
There's a hell for people like us
where we shovel the coal we have mined ourselves
into furnaces that burn the flesh from our bones
nightly, and we never miss a shift.”
― Jamaal May, The Big Book of Exit Strategies