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Charles Yu

Charles Yu Quotes

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Famous Charles Yu Quotes

“This is what I say: I've got good news and bad news. The good news is, you don't have to worry, you can't change the past. The bad news is, you don't have to worry, no matter how hard you try, you can't change the past. The universe just doesn't put up with that. We aren't important enough. No one is. Even in our own lives. We're not strong enough, willful enough, skilled enough in chronodiegetic manipulation to be able to just accidentally change the entire course of anything, even ourselves.”

TryingImportantMatterHardEnoughAblePastUniverseCoursesStrongWorryNewsManipulationGood NewsStrong EnoughCan't ChangeBad NewsNot StrongNot Strong EnoughYou Can't Change The PastCan't Change The PastGood News And Bad News
Book:How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel
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“Everyone has a time machine. Everyone *is* a time machine. It's just that most people's time machines are broken. The strangest and hardest kind of time travel is the unaided kind. People get stuck, people get looped. People get trapped. But we are all time machines.”

PeopleKindBrokenMachinesStuckHardestAll TimeTime TravelTrappedTime MachineKind People
Book:How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel
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“Failure is easy to measure. Failure is an event.Harder to measure is insignificance. A nonevent. Insignificance creeps, it dawns, it gives you hope, then delusion, then one day, when you’re not looking, it’s there, at your front door, on your desk, in the mirror, or not, not any of that, it’s the lack of all that. One day, when you are looking, it’s not looking, no one is. You lie in your bed and realize that if you don’t get out of bed and into the world today, it is very likely no one will even notice.”

IfsWorldGivingTodayLyingEasyRealizingDoorsFrontsEventsOne DayBedHarderMirrorsDawnDelusionDesksCreepsWorld TodayFront DoorsInsignificance
Author:Charles Yu
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“nostalgia, underlying cosmological explanation for Weak but detectable interaction between two neighboring universes that are otherwise not causally connected. Manifests itself in humans as a feeling of missing a place one has never been, a place very much like one’s home universe, or as a longing for versions of one’s self that one will never, and can never know.”

KnowsHumansTwoSelfFeelingsHomeUniverseMissingWeakLongingConnectedNostalgiaVersionsExplanationInteraction
Book:How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel
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“You want to tell a story? Grow a heart. Grow two. Now, with the second heart, smash the first one into bits. Gross, right? A bloody pulpy liquid mess. Look at it, try to make sense of it. Realize you can't. Because there is no sense. Ask your computer to print out a list of every lie you have ever told. Ask yourself how much of the universe you have ever really seen. Look in the mirror. Are you sure you're you? Are you sure you didn't slip out of yourself in the middle of the night, and someone else slipped into you, without you or you or any of you even noticing?”

WantTryingFirstsLooksHeartTwoStoriesLyingNightUniverseAsksGrowsBitsRealizingMiddleComputerMirrorsListsMessMake SensePrintSlipsBloodyGrossWithout YouLiquidNoticingMiddle Of The Night
Author:Charles Yu
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