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Quote by Michael Chabon

“If your wife, your brother, or God forbid, your child dies, it leaves a big hole in your life. It's much better not to pretend there's no hole. Not to try to, what do they say nowadays, get over it ... when it's time for the Kaddish. You stand up in front of everybody, and you point to the hole, and you say, 'Look at this. This is what I'm living with, this hole.' Eleven months, every week. It doesn't go away, you don't put it behind you.”

Quote by Michael Chabon

Work

Moonglow

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Author

Michael Chabon
Michael Chabon

Michael Chabon is an American author known for his rich imagination and unique narrative style. His works span various literary genres, including novels, short story collections, and children's literature. Chabon's notable works include 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay', 'The Yiddish Policemen's Union', and 'The Mysteries of Pittsburgh', which have won him widespread acclaim and numerous literary awards. more

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“I close my eyes and listen as they circle the living room, making polite offerings. The house is full and yet quiet; it’s as if my ear is pressed against a wall, listening for some great truth. As if we’re underwater, our lives submerged. I imagine the furniture dunking and bobbing, floating and sinking in the sea as we try to arrange it on the ocean floor, one hopeless piece at a time.”

“كنت عاليا في سماء الخلد أبحث عبا عن آية، معجزة، تمدني بشيئ من السلوى لروحي اليائسة، كان يزعجني الليل بهدوئه وسكونه، وأوراق أشجار الحديقة بحفيفها، وحتى النجوم المتلألئة في السماء كانت تؤرق مشاعري في هذه الليلة، كل شيء في الخارج على حاله ولا شيء قد تغير، فقط في داخلي بدأ كل شيء مختلفا”

“When I was little and running on the race track at school, I always stopped and waited for all the other kids so we could run together even though I knew (and everybody else knew) that I could run much faster than all of them! I pretended to read slowly so I could "wait" for everyone else who couldn't read as fast as I could! When my friends were short I pretended that I was short too and if my friend was sad I pretended to be unhappy. I could go on and on about all the ways I have limited myself, my whole life, by "waiting" for people. And the only thing that I've ever received in return is people thinking that they are faster than me, people thinking that they can make me feel bad about myself just because I let them and people thinking that I have to do whatever they say I should do. My mother used to teach me "Cinderella is a perfect example to be" but I have learned that Cinderella can go fuck herself, I'm not waiting for anybody, anymore! I'm going to run as fast as I can, fly as high as I can, I am going to soar and if you want you can come with me! But I'm not waiting for you anymore.”

“I pause as the clocks from Mother’s collection sound the hour. From every room come staggered chimes, cuckoos calling out. A moment later, the sound of ticking. The house a metronome. We are empty, as if our insides have been carved out. That is what death does, I think. It makes us into ticking clocks, in need of winding, hollow and mechanized.”

“If I’m being honest, there’s a lot of anger. I’m angry at this old Korean woman I don’t know, that she gets to live and my mother does not, like somehow this stranger’s survival is at all related to my loss. Why is she here slurping up spicy jjamppong noodles and my mom isn’t? Other people must feel this way. Life is unfair, and sometimes it helps to irrationally blame someone for it.”

“Standing beside her grandmother's deathbed, woolen dress still smelling of black logwood dye, Ade had felt the way a sapling might as it watched one of the old forest giants come crashing magnificently to rest: awed, and perhaps a little frightened. But when Mama Larson's final breath rattled from her ribs, Ade discovered the same thing the young sapling would have: in the absence of the old tree, there was a hole in the canopy above her.”