essense

We have this idea that we're so fragile and under immense pressure and on the verge of breaking, and that's all just a story that we tell ourselves. Your inner self, your soul, your spirit is not just strong, it's unbreakable, unquenchable. 

As Emerson wrote, The soul will not know either deformity or pain.

a kind of hangover

I'm used to building sandcastles right on the edge of the surf and they just get washed away completely, but lately something endures. 

ebb and flow

The past seems more real and tangible. We think of the past as leading us to where we are now, but because the future hasn't happened yet, we don't think of it as having any substance. The truth is that it's probably as real as the past, and as much as our will, decisions, experiences from the past push us forward, our future pulls us forward into itself. 

making a mark

With the best writers, you feel like something is being depicted beyond what they are depicting. It's like how an artist can give an impression of a highly expressive face or gesture with just a few squiggly lines. 

the voice

I appreciate that books don't audibly speak. They speak in other ways, but they don't have an audible voice. They just wait. They don't compete with each other or try to sell themselves, and yet, when you choose one to read, it will give you all it has. Then, if you decide not to read further, it's not resentful. It won't complain or take things personally or be passive aggressive or self-pitying or sabotage your reading by holding back important information.

would you fight for my love

It's surprisingly hard to put down the weight that is crushing your spirit, because you think that if you let go it will crush you for sure. 

deferrance satisfied

The first book I read by James Fenimore Cooper, the main impression I had was how boring it was. It was very earthy and basic, like a cabin in the woods. 

I didn't finish that book even though I had to read it for a course I was doing. Then, later I felt differently about his work. I recognized something of value in it, even if my initial feeling was that it was boring. 

I collect books that I haven't really enjoyed, because of their literary merit. Like Ulysses by James Joyce, and Samuel Beckett's trilogy of novels, and The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, and Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and many others. That sense of literary merit independent of enjoyment or even appreciation, is a value shared by a lot of my books. Sometimes, of course, there's both - enjoyment and literary merit, and I find that literary merit feeds into enjoyment, although not always directly.