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Daniel Nayeri Quotes

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Famous Daniel Nayeri Quotes

“Would you rather a god who listens or a god who speaks?” Be careful with the answer. It’s as important as every word from Scheherazade’s mouth that saved her life. And everybody’s got an answer. A god who listens is like your best friend, who lets you tell him about all the people you don’t like. A god who speaks is like your best teacher, who tells Brandon Goff he has to leave the room if he’s going to call people falafel monkeys. A god who listens is your mom who lets you sit in a kitchen and tell her stories about castles in the mountains. A god who speaks is your dad who calls on the phone with advice for your life in America. There are gods all over the world who just want you to express yourself. Look inside and find whatever you think you are and that’s all it takes to be good. And there are gods who are so alien to us, with minds so clear, the only thing to do would be to sit at their feet and wait for them to speak, to tell us what is good. A god who listens is love. A god who speaks is law. At their worst, the people who want a god who listens are self-centered. They just want to live in the land of do-as-you-please. And the ones who want a god who speaks are cruel. They just want laws and justice to crush everything. I don’t have an answer for you. This is the kind of thing you live your whole life thinking about probably. Love is empty without justice. Justice is cruel without love. Oh, and in case it wasn't obvious, the answer is both. God should be both. If a god isn't, that is no God.”

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Book:Everything Sad Is Untrue
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“But the truth is that no one is innocent in love, and nobody forced me to love Kelly J. I don’t want to stop just because she laughs at me. I want to stay in love with her until she realizes I am a person. It is a complicated thing that a little kid, or even a fifth grader, can’t understand, that we are always choosing situations that hurt us. We choose them so deeply that we don’t know we chose them. We think we had to. We think the world did it to us. And then we think, what a horrible world that makes a weapon out of love. That stabs you with it, even when you can't defend yourself and the other person hates you and wants to see you cry. It's a miracle that anyone would ever fall in love with someone else and--of all the people in the world--that person loves them back. Like if you fell off a building and landed in a pillow truck, somehow. It doesn't happen, basically. Which means we end up with someone and there's a lot of choosing to do. Choosing to forgive strange smells or choosing that Gadzooks is not the only place that boyfriends can shop. This is the work of love.”

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Book:Everything Sad Is Untrue
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“The lesson here is that if you watch the side characters in a love story, you might notice the lovers treating them like garbage, with the excuse that they're doing it for love. But another lesson might be that maybe you're not the hero of every story, and maybe Farhad was Shirin's true love, or maybe there isn't just one person designated for everybody. Maybe there's a lot more to it--maybe you choose and you practice and that's what makes the love true.”

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Book:Everything Sad Is Untrue
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“Most things were against the rules, so when one old lady across the hall from us fell in her shower, we couldn't do anything but steal cinder blocks from the courtyard and arrange them in her bathroom so she could sit as she washed. In situations like that, God doesn't mind stealing. Or maybe he does, but you get more positive points for helping the old lady who was so happy she cried and kissed my cheeks so hard she rubbed tears all over them. Or, wait, okay, actually, I think the point is that above all other laws is the law of love. I forgot that one for a second.”

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Book:Everything Sad Is Untrue
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