It is not a single cowardice that drives us into fiction’s fantasies. We often fear that literature is a game we can’t afford to play — the product of idleness and immoral ease. In the grip of that feeling it isn’t life we pursue, but the point and purpose of life — its facility, its use.
William H. Gass, Fiction and the Figures of Life (via quotespile)
I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, you don’t have to worry, you can’t change the past. The bad news is, you don’t have to worry, no matter how hard you try, you can’t change the past. The universe just doesn’t put up with that. We aren’t important enough. No one is. Even in our own lives. We’re not strong enough, willful enough, skilled enough in chronodiegetic manipulation to be able to just accidentally change the entire course of anything, even ourselves.
Charles Yu, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (via quotespile)
Every serious novel is, beyond its immediate thematic preoccupations, a discussion of the craft, a conquest of the form, a conflict with its difficulties and a pursuit of its felicities and beauty.
All the books we own, both read and unread, are the fullest expression of self we have at our disposal… with each passing year, and with each whimsical purchase, our libraries become more and more able to articulate who we are, whether we read the books or not.
Nick Hornby, The Polysyllabic Spree (via quotespile)
The problem was precision, perfection; the problem was digitization, which sucked the life out of everything that got smeared through its microscopic mesh. Film, photography, music: dead.
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad (via quotespile)
