A Quote by Chang-Rae Lee

We have hopes and make plans, and if they are dashed or waylaid, we naturally rationalize and redraw the map to locate ourselves anew. Or else we brood and too firmly root. Very few can step forward again and again in what amounts to veritable leaps into the void, where there are no ready holds, where little is familiar, where you get constantly stuck in the thickets of your uncertainties and fears.
We are always being pushed and squeezed down one road or another. We have no choice but to step forward, and then step forward again, and then step forward again; suddenly we find ourselves on a road we haven't chosen at all.
They couldn’t have known that even this was a lie—that we never really choose, not entirely. We are always being pushed and squeezed down one road or another. We have no choice but to step forward, and then step forward again, and then step forward again; suddenly we find ourselves on a road we haven’t chosen at all. But maybe happiness isn’t in the choosing. Maybe it’s in the fiction, in the pretending: that wherever we have ended up is where we intended to be all along.
This is what I tell my students: step outside of your tiny little world. Step inside of the tiny little world of somebody else. And then do it again and do it again and do it again. And suddenly, all these tiny little worlds, they come together in this complex web. And they build a big, complex world.
First examine what is constantly there in your mind, what is being repeated again and again. You don't have many thoughts. If you examine minutely you will see that you have only a few thoughts repeated again and again - maybe in new forms, new colors, new garments, new masks, but you have only a very few thoughts.
The world unwraps itself to you, again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew.
The Human is the only animal on earth that pays a thousand times for the same mistake. We make a mistake, we judge ourselves, we find ourselves guilty, and we punish ourselves. Every time we remember, we judge ourselves again, we are guilty again, and we punish ourselves again and again and again.
Was it an accident that I saw Fiyero, I wondered, looking at the manager with new eyes, or is it just that world unwraps itself to you again and again as soon as you are ready to see it anew?
There's very much a domino effect when I'm playing. In fact, that's a good way of putting it. I'm trying to topple all the dominos in a single stroke. That would be a show with perfect momentum. Every now and again, you get one of those dominos that moves to the side a little bit, traps things and you have to stand them all up again and see if people will go with you. They'll let you off a few times but if you make too many mistakes they'll get a bit anxious.
Being a mother is a little like 'Groundhog's Day.' It's getting out of bed and doing the exact same things again and again and yet again - and it's watching it all get undone again and again and yet again. It's humbling, monotonous, mind-numbing, and solitary.
I learned again and again in my life, until you get your own act together, you’re not ready for Big Love. What you’re ready for is one of those codependent relationships where you desperately need a partner.
The past is not a peaceful landscape lying there behind me, a country in which I can stroll wherever I please, and will gradually show me all its secret hills and dales. As I was moving forward, so it was crumbling. Most of the wreckage that can be seen is colourless, distorted, frozen: its meaning escapes me... all that's left is a skeleton. I shall never find my plans again, my hopes and fears - I shall not find myself.
Boys are very basic. If we get food, alcohol, and maybe cigarettes and occasionally some sex, we're pretty cool. We're pretty chilled. What you see is what you get. It's not so many layers. Women are a little bit more complicated, which is why we keep falling in love with you all again and again and again and again.
The worst mistake that a statesman can make is to promise victory and to see it dashed, the hopes dashed.
We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves And spend our flatteries to drink those men Upon whose age we void it up again With poisonous spite and envy.
Again and Again, however, we know the language of love, and the little churchyard with its lamenting names and the staggeringly secret abyss in which others find their end: again and again the two of us go out under the ancient trees, make our bed again and again between the flowers, face to face with the skies
I still see the world as a place of bitter irony and black humour, failed hopes, dashed plans. I hope to make my work sparer, to outgrow my desire to show off.
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