"Hell is the absence of the people you long for."

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

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“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.”

““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.”

“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

"And yet, people still turn to Jesus. You will notice though that the kind of people who turn to Jesus tend to be the sort of people who haven't done that well with everybody else."

— Dylan Moran

Entertainment1971

#Human Nature

"I know that people are interested, and I understand why, but I don't want that stuff to overshadow my life. It's just the way it is. I'm a singer, I'm in a band, I've been out with musicians, I've had…"

— Lisa Moorish

Music1972

#family

"I began to realize that my parents were going to build the biggest damn house in the whole town! I was shocked! “Are we rich?” I asked my brother. “Yes,” he said. “We are? Then why do I always wear di…"

— Victor Villaseñor

Literature1940

#justice

"The Greatest View" is a song that really focuses on people's perceptions of the same problem or the same scenario. Basically what was going on in my mind was that I had a lot of people who were watchi…"

— Daniel Johns

Music1979

#friendship