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Quote by Aleksandar Hemon

“So you are Catholic? Didn't know that. I am nothing, I said. God knows God is no friend of mine. But I envy people who believe in this crap. They don't worry about the meaning of life and things, whereas I do.”

Quote by Aleksandar Hemon

Work

The Lazarus Project

This thought-provoking book explores the concept of resurrection and its implications on human existence, weaving a complex narrative that challenges readers' perceptions of life and the afterlife. more

Author

Aleksandar Hemon
Aleksandar Hemon

Aleksandar Hemon is a Serbian-American writer known for his unique literary style and profound humanistic concerns. His works focus on themes of immigration, identity, and individual experience, and have won him a wide readership. more

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“There is history the way Tolstoy imagined it, as a great, slow-moving weather system in which even tsars and generals are just leaves before the storm. And there is history the way Hollywood imagines it, as a single story line in which the right move by the tsar or the wrong move by the general changes everything. Most of us, deep down, are probably Hollywood people. We like to invent “what if” scenarios--what if x had never happened, what if y had happened instead?--because we like to believe that individual decisions make a difference: that, if not for x, or if only there had been y, history might have plunged forever down a completely different path. Since we are agents, we have an interest in the efficacy of agency.”

“He watched the fire and if he saw portents there it was much the same to him. He would live to look upon the western sea and he was equal to whatever might follow for he was complete at every hour. Whether his history should run concomitant with men and nations, whether it should cease. He'd long forsworn all weighing of consequence and allowing as he did that men's destinies are given yet he usurped to contain within him all that he would ever be in the world and all that the world would be to him and be his charter written in the urstone itself he claimed agency and said so and he'd drive the remorseless sun on to its final endarkenment as if he'd ordered it all ages since, before there were paths anywhere, before there were men or suns to go upon them.”

“Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in faces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.”

“I wonder where we are going," I said. "Wherever the way is going," Exi replied calmly. "But where do you suppose the way is going?" "Wherever we go." "That doesn't really make sense, does it?" "Oh, yes. Quite good sense." "Why?" "Do you know any method by which you can go way and your path another? Not the path, but your path?" "Well-" I hesitated. "Well, if you put it that way, I guess not. But what about crossroads? Couldn't you choose the wrong one?" "I suppose you could. However, if it was the wrong way you chose, it would still be your way, wouldn't it?" "Yes," I answered, "yes, it probably would.”