“I Should Call You Ghost Before I Call You Father. Ain’t A Ghost Someone That Came Before You That

“Missing you comes in waves. Tonight, I am drowning.”

— From the song by Jason Lancaster.

And, finally, [Vetinari] kept Leonard around because the man was easy to talk to. He never understood what Lord Vetinari was talking about, he had a world view about as complex as that of a concussed duckling and, above all, never really paid attention. This made him an excellent confidant. After all, when you seek advice from someone it’s certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.

- Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“I’m not sentimental — I’m as romantic as you are. The idea, you know, is that the sentimental person thinks things will last — the romantic person has a desperate confidence that they won’t.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

“It’s better to bet on this life than on the next.”

— Albert Camus, A Happy Death (via philosophybits)

There’s a patron saint for everything. Nearly all the early ones were martyred. The world has always been this bloody.

—  Nancy Reddy, from “Feast Day,” published in EcoTheo Review

“You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.”

— Charles Bukowski (via quotemadness)

How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves and the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn’t they paralyze us? How is it we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we all hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise?

Don DeLillo, White Noise (via the-book-diaries)

“Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were heading for shore.”

— Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451 (via the-book-diaries)

“I started wishing on the stars in the sky instead. I said to the sun, tell me about the Big Bang. The sun said, ‘It hurts to become.‘”

— Andrea Gibson

“The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction.” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract