Conversation: Its Faults and Its Graces

“Gradually the waiting began to feel less like waiting and more like this was simply what life was: the distracting tasks undertaken while the thing you are waiting for continues not to happen.””

— Unknown

“I think I only appear smart by staying quiet as often as possible.””

— Unknown

“I realised my life would be full of mundane physical suffering, and that there was nothing special about it. Suffering wouldn't make me special, and pretending not to suffer wouldn't make me special. Talking about it, or even writing about it, would not transform the suffering into something useful.””

— Unknown

“Things and people moved around me, taking positions in obscure hierarchies, participating in systems I didn't know about and never would. A complex network of objects and concepts. You live through certain things before you understand them. You can't always take the analytical position.””

— Unknown

“You underestimate your own power so you don't have to blame yourself for treating other people badly.””

— Unknown

“Everyone’s always going through something, aren’t they? That’s life, basically. It’s just more and more things to go through.””

— Unknown

“Things matter to me more than they do to normal people, I thought. I need to relax and let things go. I should experiment with drugs.””

— Unknown

“You live through certain things before you understand them. You can’t always take the analytical position.””

— Unknown

“Was I kind to others? It was hard to nail down an answer. I worried that if I did turn out to have a personality, it would be one of the unkind ones. Did I only worry about this question because as a woman I felt required to put the needs of others before my own? Was “kindness” just another term for submission in the face of conflict? These were the kind of things I wrote about in my diary as a teenager: as a feminist I have the right not to love anyone.””

— Unknown