"“I’m a man of my word,” Jeevan said. At that point in his directionless life he wasn’t sure if this was true or not, but it was nice to think that it might be."

Emily St. John Mandel Literature See all quotes by Emily St. John Mandel →

React to this quote

More by Emily St. John Mandel

“It’s possible that no one who didn’t grow up in a small place can understand how beautiful this is, how the anonymity of city life feels like freedom.”

“The horse, Bernstein, was missing half his tail, because the first cello had just restrung his bow last week.”

“He found he was a man who repented almost everything, regrets crowding in around him like moths to a light. This was actually the main difference between twenty-one and fifty-one, he decided, the sheer volume of regret.”

“Hell is the absence of the people you long for.”

“She tried to keep this opinion to herself and occasionally succeeded.”

“Miranda is aware of how pretentious this sounds, but is it still pretentious if it’s true?”

Resonant Thoughts

"I don't follow any particular one . Ultimately I think I'm sort of a freethinker and kind of open. So many bad things–as well as good things–have happened based on people just sort of blindly followin…"

— Chris Cornell

Music1964–2017

#life

"The starting point is that one is interested in the universe, one observes that one is finite and that this is intolerable. One has a limited time and apparently limited capacity with which to find an…"

— Celia Green

Psychology1935

#life

"Fifty years ago the legal injustice imposed upon women was appalling. Wives, widows and mothers seemed to have been hunted out by the law on purpose to see in how many ways they could be wronged and m…"

— Lucy Stone

Social Activism1818–1893

#life

"Me, as myself, I don't think I'm particularly funny. But I've noticed that people in my life always have found me amusing. Which, when I was little, really bothered me."

— Madeline Kahn

Entertainment1942–1999

#life