As I reached my two-month mark of living in India, I also finished my 30th book. I have learned the following, in terms of literature and the reading of books:
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When you get rid of social media and have no access to wifi, it is monumentally easier to read the number of books you want to read.
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Netflix and Youtube have made our attention span reduce, and it takes some time, but you can regain focus.
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Often other people explain me, and life, better than I ever could.
So, as a 2-month celebration, here are my favorite quotes of authors that I have read during the start of my gap year (as well as some recommendations that I am not qualified to give).
—x—
Tonight I’m Someone Else, by Chelsea Hodson:
“Life is composed by the ad interim, the time leading up to the thing we thought we wanted”
“I believed scaffolding was the same thing as structure”
“Their names sounded like answers and I used them as such”
“Perhaps I thought that anything important would stay with me. Perhaps it has”
—x—
Hill William, by Scott McClanahan
“We wring the pain from the darkness and call it wisdom. It is not wisdom. It is pain”
—x—
Sing To It!, by Amy Hempel
“There would have been light if the curtains were opened, but they were his curtains to open and he chose to keep them closed”
“I remember thinking: there will never come a time when I will not be thinking of this. And I was right. And I was wrong”
“When danger approaches, sing to it”
—x—
Trust Exercise, by Susan Choi
“Remember the impossible eventfulness of time, transformation and emotion packed like gunpowder in the barrel”
“Heartbreak will come to seem like a rather luxurious reason for pain”
“Are we still recognized if seen by the wrong eyes?”
—x—
Preparation for the Next Life, by Atticus Lish
“It wasn’t realistic but she wished she could reduce everything to the simple physical test of running away”
“In the light of day he didn’t think he owed anything to anyone who hadn’t shared his war”
—x—
When the Nines Roll Over, by David Benioff
“Truth might be better than fiction but it needs a better editor. The greater part of anyone’s lifetime is not worth remembering”
“But can sensation maintain its clarity for eternity?”
“I had the balls to go but I didn’t have the balls to stay gone”
