In the end, writing a story isn’t a means of self-therapy, it’s nothing more than a meager attempt at self-therapy.
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For example, if I were to write about elephants, I’d have had no idea what words to use. That’s what it was like.
I’m not trying to make excuses. At least what I’m writing here is the best I can do. There’s nothing else to say. Still, here’s what I’m thinking: way before you’re good at it, maybe years or decades before you’re good at it, you can save yourself, I think. And when you do, the elephant back on the plains will be able to tell his story with words more beautiful than your own.
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The writer who writes literature, that is to say the writer who ensconces himself in his work, always checks his distance. The important thing isn’t what he perceives, it’s the ruler he uses.” -If it Feels Good, What’s the Problem?
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“People with dark souls have nothing but dark dreams. People with really dark souls do nothing but dream,” went a favorite saying of my late grandmother.
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For me, writing is a terribly painful process. Sometimes I spend a month unable to write a single line, other times, after writing for three straight days and nights I realize everything I’ve written is all wrong. Nevertheless, in spite of all that, writing is also a fun process. Compared to the difficulties of living, with writing it’s a lot easier to find meaning.
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If I could lighten up just a little, the world would move according to my whims, the value of everything would change, the flow of time would be altered…that’s how I felt.
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The things we try our hardest not to lose, we really just put create deep abysses in the spaces between them. No matter how long your ruler is, it’s an immeasurable depth.
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If you’re looking for fine art or literature, you might want to read some stuff written by the Greeks. Because to create true fine art, slaves are a necessity. That’s how the ancient Greeks felt, with slaves working the fields, cooking their meals, rowing their ships, all the while their citizens, under the Mediterranean Sun, indulged in poetry writing and grappled with mathematics. That was their idea of fine art. Those people digging around in the refrigerator at 3am, those are the only people I can write for. And that, is me.
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“I’ll just come right out and say it, rich people have no imagination. They can’t even scratch their own asses without a ruler and a flashlight.
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Everybody’s gotta die sometime. But until then we’ve still got fifty-some odd years to go, and a lot to think about while we’re living those fifty years, and I’ll just come right out and say it: that’s even more tiring than living five thousand years thinking about nothing.
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I can always buy another car, but luck I cannot buy.
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Living authors don’t have any merit. Dead authors, as a rule, seem more trusting than live ones.
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The Rat’s stories always follow two rules: first, there are no sex scenes, and second, not one person dies. Even if you don’t acknowledge it, people die, and guys sleep with girls. That’s just how it is.
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Do you think I’m wrong?” she asked.
The Rat took a sip of beer and shook his head deliberately. “I’ll just come right out and say it, everybody’s wrong.”
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“Well, some people are just born unlucky.”
“Who said that?”
“John F. Kennedy.”
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Whatever can’t be expressed might as well not exist.
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With civilization comes communication. Expression and communication are essential; without these, civilization ends.
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Whenever I look at the ocean, I always want to talk to people, but when I’m talking to people, I always want to look at the ocean. I’m weird like that.
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A girl lends you something…*hiccup*…you return it, understand?”
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I heard this joke in an old movie about the Great Depression:‘
You know why I always have my umbrella open when I walk by the Empire State Building? ‘Cause people are always falling like raindrops!’
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“Hey, what the hell do you think girls eat to survive?”
“The soles of their shoes.”
“No way,” said the Rat.
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Bigness, sometimes it changes the very essence of something into something else entirely.
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There are some things in the world you just can’t do anything about.
“For example?”
“Cavities, for example. One day your tooth just starts hurting. Someone comforting you isn’t going to make it stop hurting. When that happens, you just start to get mad at yourself. Then you start to get really off at the people who aren’t pissed off. Know what I mean?”
“Kind of,” I said, “still, think about this. Everyone’s built the same. It’s like we’re all riding together on a broken airplane. Of course there are lucky people, there are also unlucky people. There’re tough people, and weak people, rich people, and poor people. However, not a single person’s broken the mold with his toughness. We’re all the same. Everyone who has something is afraid of losing it, and people with nothing are worried they’ll forever have nothing. Everyone is the same. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll want to get stronger. Even if you’re just pretending. Don’t you think? There aren’t any real strong people anywhere. Only people who can put on a good show of being strong.”
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The truth is this: life is empty. However, help is available. If you know that from the outset, it’s almost as if life’s not really meaningless at all. We’ve really worked tirelessly to build it all up, and then tried with all our might to wear it down, and now it’s empty. No matter how hard you work, or how hard you try to bring it down, none of that’ll be written here. ‘Cause it’s a real pain in the ass. For those of you who really want to know, you can read about it in Romain Rolland’s novel Jean-Christophe .It’s all there, written out for you.
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“If writers only wrote about things everybody knew, what the hell would be the point of writing?”
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Telling lies is a really terrible thing. These days, lies and silence are the two greatest sins in human society, you might say.In reality, we tell lots of lies, and we often break into silence.
However, if we were constantly talking year-round, and telling only the truth, truth would probably lose some of its value.
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“You’re a Capricorn?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Me too. January 10th.”
“Feels like an unlucky star to be born under. Same as Jesus Christ.”
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Even from whatever miserable experience you might have, there is something to be learned, and it’s because of this that I can find the will to keep on living.
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I’m going to try to only think positive thoughts. And I’ll be able to fall sound asleep at night. Because the worst thoughts usually strike in the dead of night.
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“What you give freely to others, you will always receive in turn.”
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Things pass us by. Nobody can catch them. That’s the way we live our lives.
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Am I happy?
If you asked me this, I’d have to say, ‘Yeah, I guess.’ Because dreams are, after all, just that: dreams.
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Then, in a flood of people and in the flow of time, she vanished without a trace.
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“In the light of day, one can comprehend the depths of night’s darkness.”
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“Compared to the complexity of the universe,” Hartfield says, “our world’s like the brain tissue of an earthworm.”