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A Little Life

Book by Hanya Yanagihara · 31 quotes · A Little Life, Hanya Yanagihara, Friendship

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A Little Life Quotes

“Sometimes he would think of those moments and feel a sort of disorientation: Was that them, really, those people back then? Where had those people gone? Would they reappear? Or were they now other people entirely? And then he would imagine that those people weren't so much gone as they were within them, waiting to bob back up to the surface, to reclaim their bodies and minds; they were identities now in remission, but they would always be with them.”

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“Y si nos ponemos filosóficos, como hoy, podemos afirmar que la vida en sí misma es el axioma del conjunto vacío. Empieza en cero y termina en cero. Sabemos que ambos estados existen, pero no seremos conscientes ni de una experiencia ni de la otra: son estados que constituyen una parte necesaria de la vida aun cuando no pueden ser experimentados como vida. Asumimos el concepto de la nada, pero no podemos demostrarlo. Sin embargo debe existir. De modo que prefiero pensar que Walter, lejos de morir, ha demostrado en sí mismo el axioma del conjunto vacío, ha verificado el concepto del cero. No se me ocurre qué podría haberle hecho más feliz.”

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“Bueno, lo más duro de la paternidad es readaptarte. Cuanto mejor se te dé, mejor padre serás. En ese momento no hice mucho caso de ese consejo, pero a medida que se agravaba la enfermedad de Jacob, pensé en ello con más frecuencia y comprendí cuán sabio era. Todos decimos que queremos que nuestros hijos sean felices, felices y sanos, pero no queremos eso. En realidad deseamos que sean como nosotros, o mejores que nosotros. En eso somos muy poco imaginativos, y no estamos preparados para aceptar que puedan ser peores. Supongo que eso sería pedir demasiado, debe de ser un recurso de la evolución: si fuéramos tan conscientes de lo que se puede torcer, nadie tendría hijos.”

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“SETH: ¿No lo entiendes, Amy? Estás en un error. Las relaciones nunca te dan todo lo que quieres. Piensa todas las cosas que buscas en una persona —química sexual, buena conversación, seguridad económica, compatibilidad intelectual, gentileza o lealtad— y escoge tres. Tres, eso es todo. Tal vez cuatro, si tienes suerte. El resto tendrás que buscarlo en otra parte. Solo en las películas uno encuentra a alguien que te da todo lo que necesita. Pero esto no es el cine. En el mundo real hay que identificar tres cualidades con las que quieres vivir el resto de tu vida y buscar las restantes en otras personas. Así es la vida real. ¿No ves que es una trampa? Si lo quieres todo, acabarás con nada. AMY (llorando): ¿Y qué has escogido tú? SETH: No lo sé. (Pausa). No lo sé.”

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“Ei ollut tarkoitus. Olin täysin väärässä. Siinä mitä tein mutta ennen kaikkea siinä mitä sanoin: sanat oli tarkoitettu toiselle ihmiselle. Usko minua nyt, koska uskoit minua aikaisemmin: olet kaunis ja täydellinen, enkä tarkoittanut mitään, mitä sanoin. Olin väärässä, tein virheen, eikä kukaan olisi ikinä voinut olla enemmän väärässä kuin minä.”

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“Me olimme tehneet yhdessä ihmisen ja nähneet, kun hän kuoli. Joskus minusta tuntui, että meitä yhdisti fyysinen side, pitkä köysi Bostonista Portlandiin asti: kun hän nykäisi omassa päässään, minä tunsin sen. Se seurasi häntä kaikkialle, se seurasi minua kaikkialle, tämä loistava punos joka venyi ja kiskoi muttei koskaan katkennut, ja aina kun liikahdimme, se muistutti meitä siitä mitä emme enää milloinkaan saisi.”

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“Kolmannella kymmenellään hän oli ajoittain luonut katseen ystäviinsä ja tuntenut niin puhdasta, syvää tyytyväisyyttä, että oli toivonut maailman heidän ympärillään yksinkertaisesti lakkaavan olemasta, ettei kenenkään heistä tarvitsisi siirtyä eteenpäin siitä hetkestä, jossa kaikki oli tasapainossa ja hänen kiintymyksensä heitä kohtaan täydellistä. Mutta niin ei tietenkään koskaan käynyt: silmänräpäystä myöhemmin kaikki oli toisin, ja hetki haihtui vähin äänin.”

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“Se on ensimmäinen suudelma, jonka hän on elämänsä aikana antanut omasta aloitteestaan, ja hän toivoo sen kertovan Willemille kaiken, mitä hän ei voi sanoa, edes pimeässä, edes aamun harmaassa kajossa: kaiken mitä hän häpeää, kaiken mistä hän on kiitollinen. Tällä kertaa hän pitää silmät kiinni ja kuvittelee, että pian itsekin pääsee sinne, minne ihmiset menevät suudellessaan, harrastaessaan seksiä: maahan jossa hän ei ole koskaan käynyt, paikkaan jonka hän haluaa nähdä, maailmaan joka toivottavasti ei ole häneltä ikuisesti kielletty.”

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“He made lists of what he needed to resolve, and fast, in the following year: his work (at a standstill), his love life (nonexistent), hi sexuality (unresolved), his future (uncertain). The four items were always the same, although sometimes their order of priority changed. Also consistent was his ability to precisely diagnose their status, coupled with his utter inability to provide any solutions.”

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“These galleries are hung, mostly, with images from "Frog and Toad", and he moves from each to each, not really seeing them but rather remembering the experience of viewing them for the first time, in JB´s studio, when he and Willem were new to each other, when he felt as if he was growing new body parts - a second heart, a second brain - to accommodate this excess of feeling, the wonder of his life.”

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“At times he missed being part of the pictures himself, here was a whole narrative of his friends' lives, his absence an enormous missing part, but he also enjoyed the godlike role he played. He got to see his friends differently, not as just appendages to his life but as distinct characters inhaling their own stories; he felt sometimes that he was seeing them for the first time, even after so many years of knowing them.”

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“It would have been too melodramatic, too final, to say that after this JB was forever diminished for him. But it was true that for the first time, he was able to comprehend that the people he had grown to trust might someday betray him anyway, and that as disappointing as it might be, it was inevitable as well, and that life would keep propelling him steadily forward, because for everyone who might fail him in some way, there was at least one person who never would.”

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“The only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than vou are - not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving - and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and to try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad-or good - it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well.”

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“Why wasn't friendship as good as a relationship? Why wasn't it even better? It was two people who remained together, day after day, bound not by physical attraction or money or children or property, but only by the shared agreement to keep going, the mutual dedication to a union that could never be codified. Friendship was witnessing another's slow drip of miseries, and long bouts of boredom, and occasional triumphs. It was feeling honored by the privilege of getting to be present for another person's most dismal moments, and knowing that you could be dismal around him in return.”

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“Relationships never provide you with everything. They provide you with some things. You take all the things you want from a person - sexual chemistry, let's say, or a good conversation, or financial support, or intellectual compatibility, or niceness, or loyalty - and you get to pick three of those things. Three - that's it. Maybe four, if you're very lucky. The rest you have to look for elsewhere. It's only in the movies that you find someone who gives you all of those things. But this isn't the movies. In the real world, you have to identify which three qualities you want to spend the rest of your life with, and then you look for those qualities in another person. That's real life. Don't you see it's a trap? If you keep trying to find everything, you'll wind up with nothing.”

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