“Men can starve from a lack of self-realization as much as they can from a lack of bread.”
Richard Wright, Native Son
“If you accept death, it is altogether like a frosty night and an anxious misgiving, but a frosty night in a vineyard full of sweet grapes. You will soon take pleasure in your wealth. Death ripens. One needs death to be able to harvest the fruit. Without death, life would be meaningless, since the long-lasting rises again and denies its own meaning. To be, and to enjoy your being, you need death, and limitation enables you to fulfill your being.”
Carl Jung
“She sat down with us, and I don’t remember what she asked me. I don’t remember what we said. What I do remember is her treating me like an adult. Like a whole person, I guess. She asked me what I was feeling, and I rambled, and she listened. I wasn’t some awkward kid to her—I mean, I was an awkward kid, but she didn’t make me feel that way.”
Becky Chambers, A Psalm For The Wild-Built (Page 134)
“I have an extraordinarily low tolerance for pessimists. You should, too. This world is already difficult enough. We don’t need to be reminded of its difficulty. Instead, we need to be reminded that everything that has come before us was created by men and women who weren’t any more capable than you or me. We need to be reminded of what is possible, and we need to remind others of what is possible, too. May this be your reminder.”
Cole Schafer
“I think there’s something beautiful about being lucky enough to witness a thing on its way out.”
Becky Chambers, A Psalm For The Wild-Built (Page 99)
“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag – and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty-and vise versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.”
Doris Lessing
“If you’re regularly having arguments with well-informed people of goodwill, you will probably ‘lose’ half of them–changing your mind based on what you’ve learned. If you’re not changing your mind, it’s likely you’re not actually having an argument (or you’re hanging out with the wrong people.) While it can be fun to change someone else’s position, it’s also a gift to learn enough to change ours. ‘Tell me about other strongly-held positions you’ve changed as the result of a discussion like this one…’ is a direct way to start a conversation about the argument you’re proposing to have. ‘What sort of information would make it likely you could see this in a different way?’ It probably doesn’t pay to argue over things we have chosen to believe as part of our identity.”
Seth Godin
“‘So, the paradox is that the ecosystem as a whole needs its participants to act with restraint in order to avoid collapse, but the participants themselves have no inbuilt mechanism to encourage such behavior.’ ‘Other than fear.’ ‘Other than fear, which is a feeling you want to avoid or stop at all costs.’ The hardware in Mosscap’s head produced a steady hum. ‘Yes, that’s a mess, isn’t it?'”
Becky Chambers, A Psalm For The Wild-Built (Page 96)
“Decay was a built-in function of the City’s towers, crafted from translucent casein and mycelium masonry. Those walls would, in time, begin to decompose, at which point they’d either be repaired by materials grown for that express purpose, or, if the building was no longer in use, be reabsorbed into the landccape that had hosted it for a time. But a Factory Age building, a metal building—that was of no benefit to anything beyond the small creatures that enjoyed some temporary shelter in its remains. It would corrode until it collapsed. That was the most it would achieve. Its only legacy was to persist where it did not belong.”
Becky Chambers, A Psalm For The Wild-Built (Page 90)