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Quote by Ross Gay

“Of course she’s dead: Tina was her name, of leukemia: so I heard— why else would I try sadly to make music of her unremarkable kindness? I am trying, I think, to forgive myself for something I don’t know what. But what I do know is that I love the moment when the poet says I am trying to do this or I am trying to do that.”

Quote by Ross Gay

Book:Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude
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Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude

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Ross Gay

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“As you get older, your self will diminish and you will grow in love. YOU will gradually be replaced by LOVE. If you have kids, that will be a huge moment in your process of self-diminishment. You really won’t care what happens to YOU, as long as they benefit. That’s one reason your parents are so proud and happy today. One of their fondest dreams has come true: You have accomplished something difficult and tangible that has enlarged you as a person and will make your life better, from here on in, forever.”

LoveKindnessSelf ImprovementAccomplishmentSelflessnessGrowing OldParental LoveBiggest Regret
Book:Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness
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“Your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving: Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now. There’s a confusion in each of us, a sickness, really: selfishness. But there’s also a cure. Find out what makes you kinder, what opens you up and brings out the most loving, generous, and unafraid version of you—and go after those things as if nothing else matters. Because, actually, nothing else does.”

KindnessSelf ImprovementSelfishnessSelflessnessGrowing OldBiggest RegretBe Kinder
Book:Congratulations, by the way: Some Thoughts on Kindness
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“I do agree with the premise that there is something wrong with us, something we must work to overcome. It’s our xenophobia, authoritarianism, and violence. When we lived in small bands of only a few dozen people there might have been some selective advantage to these terrible qualities. But now we live in a tribe of seven billion. We are, more than ever, all in it together. Science and technology have allowed us to see one another’s lives, to speak one another’s languages, to learn one another’s customs. They’ve also given us a view of our small world in the vastness. This should breed kindness. As my dad once said, “If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.” I believe our cruelty toward one another, not sex or love of knowledge, is our original sin. It’s that for which we must really atone. In small instances as well as large ones.”

LoveKindness
Book:For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals and reflections for finding wonder
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