Could We Not Do This Right Now? Asked Howard. When You Are Guilty, All You Can Ask For Is A Deferral

‘Could we not do this right now?’ asked Howard. When you are guilty, all you can ask for is a deferral of the judgement.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith (via wholesomeobsessive)

But I always said I wanted him to be happy, & now I know it was true all along. I do want that. Even when it looks like this I still want it.

Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)

The similarity was such that Arabic words were slipping quickly into English, because Arabic had a larger vocabulary for this landscape: akaba for the steep final slopes around volcanoes, badia for the great world dunes, nefuds for deep sand, seyl for the billion year-old dry river beds… people were saying they might as well switch over to Arabic and have done with it.

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (via wholesomeobsessive)

I had the callowest possible definition of interesting and, by the measure of my own calipers, was far from interesting myself.

Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (via wholesomeobsessive)

Language does this to our memories—simplifies, solidifies, codifies, mummifies. An oft-told story is like a photograph in a family album; eventually, it replaces the moment it was meant to capture.

Karen Joy Fowler, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves (via wholesomeobsessive)

I said that the problem with people (as if there were only one) is how they think everything can be measured in dollars and cents.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler (via wholesomeobsessive)