SO GOOD QUOTES

  • It is also not unknown for creative people, once they have achieved an intimate relationship, to lose some of their imaginative drive.

    Solitude, a Return to the Self
    Anthony Storr

  • “Adultery is always a matter of choice; no amount of lust, and no passion of love, can overwhelm a person’s capacity to choose between fidelity and betrayal.”

    On Living Simply
    St. John Chrysostom

  • My child, it often happens that a man seeks ardently after something he desires and then when he has attained it he begins to think that it is not at all desirable; for affections do not remain fixed on the same thing, but rather flit from one to another.  It is no very small matter, therefore, for a man to forsake himself even in things that are very small.

    A man’s true progress consists in denying himself, and the man who has denied himself is truly free and secure.

    —Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

  • A few Sundays ago, I was speaking to a zealous young man during the coffee hour after the Liturgy. He is a married man with a pregnant wife, and he struggles to find meaning and purpose in his work and in “the way things are” in his life and his extended family. He was lamenting that he wanted to experience a life of prayer and quiet, that he thought that such a life would bring him peace and purpose. And although I generally do not assume that I know God’s will for someone else (heck, I seldom know God’s will for myself), I was able to say confidently to this young man that monasticism was not God’s will for his life. I told him that he had already chosen a path and it was on that path that he would find his salvation, not in wishing or wondering or imagining a different path.

    —Fr. Michael Gillis, Muddling Through The Snirt Of This World

  • It was not a question of love on my part, the idea hadn’t even crossed my mind. And love without hope is something else, something painful certainly, but something that never generates the same sense of closeness, the same sensitivity to the intonations of the other, even in the one who loves without hope, they are too lost in vain and frenetic expectation to retain even the smallest amount of lucidity, to be able to interpret any signal correctly; in short I was in a situation that had, in my life, no precedent.

    The Possibility of an Island
    Michel Houellebecq

  • LIVING TOGETHER ALONE is hell between consenting adults.

    In the life of a couple, most often there will be at the beginning certain details, certain discordances about which it is decided to say nothing, in the enthusiastic certainty that love will end up solving all problems.

    The Possibility of an Island
    Michel Houellebecq

  • Isabelle didn’t have friends either, and, especially in the final years, she had been surrounded only by people who dreamed of taking her place. Thus we never had anyone to invite round to our sumptuous residence; no one with whom to share a glass of rioja while watching the stars. What could we do, then? We asked ourselves the question while crossing the dunes. Live? It’s precisely in this kind of situation that, crushed by the sense of their own insignificance, people decide to have children; this is how the species reproduces, although less and less, it must be said.

    The Possibility of an Island
    Michel Houellebecq

  • I didn’t fully know what it was that happened to my facial expression in those moments that made her suffer so much; I would have given a great deal to avoid it, for, I repeat, I loved her; but manifestly that wasn’t possible. Nor could I reiterate that she was still as desirable, still as beautiful; I never felt, in the slightest way, capable of lying to her.

    The Possibility of an Island
    Michel Houellebecq

  • Aymeric had married within his circle, that’s what happens most often in the end, and it’s what gives the best results in principle, well, that’s what I’d heard anyway, but my problem is that I had no circle, no precise circle.

    Serotonin: A Novel
    Michel Houellebecq

  • I absolutely love “You’re the Best” from the first album. The first lines really struck me: “All I know is / when you hold me / I still feel lonely / lonely when you hold me.” Can you explain them a bit?

    I wrote that song when I was at a point in a relationship that I often get to in relationships: I’m there. I am finally with the person I wanted to be with. And then he falls asleep and I realize I’m still alone. As much as I try and want to be bonded with this person, the dominant feeling that I feel at all times is a loneliness. It just doesn’t go away. And I think that resonated for a lot of people. Relationships doesn’t make that go away. You can be more lonely in a relationship sometimes than you would be on your own.

    We had brunch with Kelly Zutrau from the band Wet—and talked about almost everything