Alone With You in the Ether Quotes

“He wondered what a bee would do if it knew its life work was contributing to the ecosystems of fancy toasts. Would that be enough to compel it to stop? Doubtful.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“She proved herself alive by proving this day had never been lived before, that this thing had never been felt or never tasted or never wanted...”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Tell the voice in your head to be quiet, would you? I know you’re not here right now, I know you’re lost somewhere that I can’t go or touch or see, but look me in my green eyes and tell me what else matters. Bees, Regan, think of the bees, think about the implausibility of time and space, think of impossible things. Think about the stars in Babylon and tell me, Regan, all this time we’ve been talking and you’ve been syncopating your breath to mine and your pulse to mine and your thoughts to my thoughts, you’ve been learning how to love me, haven’t you? If I am a lover of impossible problems then you will have loved me for my impossibilities, so tell me, Regan, what else matters but this, me, us?
Nothing.
Nothing.
Welcome back, Regan.
I missed you while you were away.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Yes it does, he doesn’t want to be the person she hides from, he wants to be the person she hides with. These are distinct, doesn’t she realize? Does she have any idea how difficult he finds it to exist with other people? And then here she is, this mystery, this puzzle, does she even know how much he loves her unpredictability, her twists and turns? She thinks her brain is some sort of problem? Fine, good, he loves problems.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“You can’t fix me,” she whispered to him, her mouth tracing his neck. Do you understand, do you know what you hold in your hands, do you know how readily it breaks?
“I don’t see anything to fix,” he said.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“His name is written on my skin, he scarred me, I’ve changed my entire shape for having fit within the enormity of his thoughts, and now the only words I know are lines and color.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“If you could open only one part of me for your consumption, for your delectation, for the whims of your carnivorous mind, which part would you wish to see?”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Time is a function of lies, a trick of the light, a mistranslation.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“I don’t think it counts as learning it if you don’t know what you learned.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone with You in the Ether

“Deities themselves had changed over time, but the act of devotion had not. That was the torment of it, of art, and the perpetual idolatry of its creation. For every sensation Regan could conjure, there was an artist who had beautifully suffered the same.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone with You in the Ether

“That was the torment of it, of art, and the perpetual idolatry of its creation. For every sensation Regan could conjure, there was an artist who had beautifully suffered the same.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone with You in the Ether

“He thinks: The Babylonians were wrong; time is made of her.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“It frustrated him immensely that he would never be able to prove that time didn't stop when she met his eye. Though, he reminded himself, maybe if he committed it to memory then he could return to it in another shape, with better understanding.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Yes, how perilously wonderful to suffer so sweetly with you.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“They have plenty of other times for conversations, he says, and that is when she knows- god, she knows- that she loves him so deeply and so passionately and so devastatingly that by the time that she tells him, the words will inevitably feel empty and small”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“He didn't see the problem in loving her that way, with a savagery that felt as ancient as his sorrows, until he realized that the could no longer recall a life without her. It was as if the older versions of him had been erased and could no longer exist. He realized that his relationship whit time, whatever it was before, was now forever altered.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Do you prefer ignorance?" "I should, probably," she admitted. "Ignorance really does seem to be bliss." That, however, he did seem to take issue with. "I think I'd rather be informed than blissful." "So you'd rather have knowledge than happiness?" He thought about it. "Yes," he concluded, and then hesitated. 'Sometimes," he began slowly, "doesn't happiness seem...fake? Like it might be something someone invented. An impossible goal we'll never reach," he clarified, "just to keep us all quiet." "Almost certainly," she agreed.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“to proceed without knowledge or understanding is a stupid kind of bravery, an impulsive kind of blindness, but that to be alone without wonder or curiosity is to chip away any possible value we might discover in existing.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“when they embark, they will have each turned a corner. And everything will be as it was, only very slightly different.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Either it was everything to know the whole story, to look back and see the shape of it while standing along its periphery; or it was nothing, because things in their entirety were less fragile and therefore less beautiful than the pieces within the frame.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“You have to take back your life, Aldo," she said, suddenly admonishing. "You can't just live in your past lives."

"I wasn't aware that I was.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“It isn’t constancy that keeps us alive, it’s the progression we use to move us. Because everything is always the same until, very suddenly, it isn’t.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone with You in the Ether

“That old reflex never died; the little pang of Don’t go, just stay. Settle over me like the tide, cover me like a blanket, wrap around me like the sun. Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone with You in the Ether

“The world loved to take a beautiful woman and exclaim at the charm of her imperfection. (p. 26)”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“I think I’d rather be informed than blissful.” “So you’d rather have knowledge than happiness?” He thought about it. “Yes,” he concluded, and then hesitated. “Sometimes,” he began slowly, “doesn’t happiness seem … fake? Like it might be something someone invented. An impossible goal we’ll never reach,” he clarified, “just to keep us all quiet.” “Almost certainly,” she agreed.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone with You in the Ether

“Did it matter where it started, and would it matter where it would end?
Either yes, it mattered very much, because everything was a consequence of something and therefore what became of them was somehow predetermined, or no, it did not matter at all, because beginnings and endings were not as important as the moments that could have happened or the outcomes that might have been. Either it was everything to know the whole story, to look back and see the shape of it while standing along its periphery; or it was nothing, because things in their entirety were less fragile and therefore less beautiful than the pieces within the frame.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“It isn’t pretty, he wanted to say, it’s lonely, it’s desolate, it’s a chilling portrait of vastness. How ignorant are you to look at this and diminish it to some kind of trinket, are you dead? It’s the human condition! It’s the entire universe itself! It’s the depths of spacetime you utter fucking philistine and how dare you, how fucking dare you stand there and fail to weep? What kind of sad, unremarkable nothingness have you so callously lived that you can witness the splendor of her existence and not fall to your knees for having missed it, for having misunderstood it all this time? Pretty, that’s what you think this is? You think that’s all she’s capable of? You fool, she’s done the impossible. She has explained everything there is to know about the world in less than the time it took for your eyes to fully focus, and do you realize that I will spend a lifetime trying to do the same and never come close? This is an opus!, this is a triumph!, this is the meaning of life and you would think the answer would be satire, but it isn’t, it’s Truth. She told the Truth like you could never dream of telling it, and I pity you, that you could see the inside of your own soul and reduce it like this, so pitilessly. So carelessly. With the vacuous deficiency of,
Oh, this is pretty.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“She was colossal like this, the enormity of what she was now steadily irrepressible, ebullient for being in his arms; Kiss me again, please, don’t stop, oh god don’t stop. He would never, he wouldn’t, but still, please don’t, we’ll shrink down to human-sized when we’re done but for now, stay like this with me; see the magnitude of being, see existence through my eyes; don’t blink or you might miss it. I am dwarfed, Aldo, by the happiness in that room, it’s overwhelmed me. It has made me feel so infinitesimally small; I need you to help me remember what it feels like to be vast again.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“She knows better than to confuse apologies with affection. People are always sorry, so when he crawls towards her on the mattress she knows to wait for it, to sigh and say, It’s fine, only instead he surprises her, says: I love your brain.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether

“Something is wrong, she thought, something is right. Something is definitely wrong but the something right is bigger, somehow, closer to truth. Wrong the way truth is when it’s right.”
― Olivie Blake, Alone With You in the Ether