day twenty two
Quotes – Part 1
Quotes are odd. We've seen hundreds and thousands of them – mostly from famous figures. We tend to sideline most quotes into the same mental box as clichés – agreeing with their premise passively, and moving on with life.
I've realised that the quotes that have stuck with me over time aren't from famous figures and celebrities. They're from TV shows and movies and books – pieces of art that I cherish. So, without further ado, here are some of my favorite quotes of all time:
The Mr Robot finale
“There are some people out there… And it doesn’t happen a lot. It’s rare. But they refuse to let you hate them. In fact, they care about you in spite of it. And the really special ones, they’re relentless at it. Doesn’t matter what you do to them. They take it and care about you anyway. They don’t abandon you, no matter how many reasons you give them. No matter how much you’re practically begging them to leave. And you wanna know why? Because they feel something for me that I can’t… They love me. We’re all told we don’t stand a chance, and yet we stand. We break, but we keep going, and that is not a flaw. That’s what makes us.”
“What if changing the world was just about being here, by showing up no matter how many times we get told we don’t belong, by staying true even when we’re shamed into being false, by believing in ourselves even when we’re told we’re too different? And if we all held on to that, if we refuse to budge and fall in line, if we stood our ground for long enough, just maybe… The world can’t help but change around us.”
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami
“What happens when people open their hearts?” “They get better.”
“Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that.”
“I really like you, Midori. A lot.” “How much is a lot?” “Like a spring bear,” I said. “A spring bear?” Midori looked up again. “What’s that all about? A spring bear.” “You’re walking through a field all by yourself one day in spring, and this sweet little bear cub with velvet fur and shiny little eyes comes walking along. And he says to you, “Hi, there, little lady. Want to tumble with me?’ So you and the bear cub spend the whole day in each other’s arms, tumbling down this clover-covered hill. Nice, huh?” “Yeah. Really nice.” “That’s how much I like you.”
Human Acts by Han Kang
“After you died I could not hold a funeral, And so my life became a funeral.”
“Glass is transparent, right? And fragile. That's the fundamental nature of glass. And that's why objects that are made of glass have to be handled with care. After all, if they end up smashed or cracked or chipped, then they're good for nothing, right, you just have to chuck them away. Before, we used to have a kind of glass that couldn't be broken. A truth so hard and clear it might as well have been made of glass. So when you think about it, it was only when we were shattered that we proved we had souls. That what we really were was humans made of glass.”
“The look in someone’s eyes, the beliefs they espoused, the eloquence with which they did so, were, she knew, no guarantee of anything. She knew that the only life left to her was one hemmed in by niggling doubts and cold questions.”
Brooklyn 99 – Gina's last day at the precinct
“Life is chaos; success is completely arbitrary, and confidence is everything”
So those were some of the quotes that have stayed with me. There's Part 2 and 3 to come- Part two with more of the same, and Part 3 with some of my favorite song lyrics.
I'm doing this for fun and nostalgia – to reconnect with some of my favorite pieces of art. These are little words that play in my head at all times, thoughts I think in daily life. They're beautiful and small and wonderful. They're what quotes should be.