Simon Van Booy, The Illusion of Separateness
14 quotes
"I think people would be happier if they admitted things more often. In a sense we are all prisoners of some memory, or fear, or disappointment - we are all defined by something we can’t change."
"We cross from memory into imagination with only a vague awareness of change."
"In the end I didn't know who I was crying for, but it was something my body wanted to do, as though trying to digest grief."
"Sometimes I wake up and lie still enough to hear a petal drop from the vase of flowers. Sometimes I lie awake and wish there was someone to hear my falling."
"Anyone who is desperate or alone will agree there is comfort in routine."
"He realized this early on, and realized too that what people think are their lives are merely its conditions. The truth is closer than thought and lies buried in what we already know."
"She said that one day they would be very old, that the world would be a different place, but it would always be their world, and that the time apart now would be a nightmare from which they would recover - desperation buried under years of happiness."
"Love is also a violence, and cannot be undone."
"I tried to convey to the boy how people’s lives are often altered by curved lines read slowly from paper, sand, or stone."
"When he smiles, they mostly look away. But Martin likes to think they carry his smile for a few blocks – that even the smallest gesture is something grand."
"We all have different lives, Martin believes – but in the end probably feel the same things, and regret the fear we thought might somehow sustain us."
"I was afraid of the sea when I was a girl. Someone said it went on forever and that frightened me. I wondered why my parents had chosen to live at the beginning and the end of the world."
"He might be famous (local newspaper or television) for finding it, true—but if fame takes away the thing it celebrates, then Sebastien would prefer the inspired silence. We’re all famous in our own hearts anyway."
"He wanted to tell the baby that Paris was like a poem in stone."