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121 " They were like two inviolable spheres touching at a fine point in their curves, touching but failing to penetrate, failing to breathe the other's air. "
― Joshua Ferris , The Unnamed
122 " To give up on a person you care for who is trying and failing is a bad thing, but to cut ties with an individual who is giving zero effort, yet doing a number on your heart makes sense. "
123 " When you feel angry or frustrated at a brother for using a particular defense -- being controlling or whatever it is -- you are failing to forgive yourself for the very same attempt; you still believe that the defense has a reality. You are seeing it out there but when you start to pull it back to your mind, you start to see the control in yourself. The guilt from transferring it from one seeming person/body to another seeming person/body is enormous. Instead of blaming your brother, the blame gets turned onto your own seeming body, but it is still the same error. We have to see that I am mind; this identity that I took off of my brother but still saw in myself is also just a construct in my mind. Otherwise, what good is the transfer? "
― David Hoffmeister , Unwind Your Mind Back to God: Experiencing A Course in Miracles
124 " One great help here - and I make no claim that it is the only help or even a necessary condition for forgiveness - is sincere repentance on the part of the wrongdoer. When I am wronged by another, a great part of the injury - over and above any physical harm I may suffer - is the insulting or degrading message that has been given to me by the wrongdoer: the message that I am less worthy than he is, so unworthy that he may use me merely as a means or object in service to his desires and projects. Thus failing to resent(or hastily forgiving) the wrongdoer runs the risk that I am endorsing that very immoral message for which the wrongdoer stands. If the wrongdoer sincerely repents, however, he now joins me in repundiating the degrading and insulting message - allowing me to relate to him (his new self) as an equal without fear that a failure to resent him will be read as a failure to resent what he hs done. "
― , Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits
125 " We don't think of ourselves as 'unforgiving' or 'bitter'- those words imply that we are somehow personally responsible. We prefer to talk about how deeply we have been 'hurt', implying that we are merely helpless victims. Are those who have been deeply wounded destined to live damaged lives? Or is there real healing for deep hurt? I say there is. . . .We've also deceived ourselves into believing that we can love and serve God and be 'good Christians,' while failing to forgive. When are we going to get honest? "
― Byron Paulus
126 " When gorillas smell danger, they run around and call out to the rest of the primates in the jungle to warn them something evil is coming. And when one of their own dies, they mourn for days while beating themselves up in sadness for failing to save that gorilla, even if the cause of death was natural. And when one colony is mourning, their chilling echoes migrate to other colonies — and those neighbors, even if they are territorial rivals, will also grieve with them. When faced with a common danger, rivals turn into allies. And when faced with death, the loss of just one gorilla becomes the loss of the entire jungle. "
― , Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
127 " You’re innocent until proven guilty,” Mandy exclaimed, unable to hide her gleeful smile. She missed the way people used to have normal conversations, used to be more caring for each other than themselves, back in the Seventies and Eighties. These days, she realized, neighbors kept to themselves, their kids kept to themselves, nobody talked to each other anymore. They went to work, went shopping and shut themselves up at home in front of glowing computer screens and cellphones… but maybe the nostalgic, better times in her life would stay buried, maybe the world would never be what it was. In the 21st century music was bad, movies were bad, society was failing and there were very few intelligent people left who missed the way things used to be… maybe though, Mandy could change things. Thinking back to the old home movies in her basement, she recalled what Alecto had told her. “We wanted more than anything else in the world to be normal, but we failed.” The 1960’s and 1970’s were very strange times, but Mandy missed it all, she missed the days when Super-8 was the popular film type, when music had lyrics that made you think, when movies had powerful meanings instead of bad comedy and when people would just walk to a friend’s house for the afternoon instead of texting in bed all day. She missed soda fountains and department stores and non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags, she wished cellphones, bad pop music and LED lights didn’t exist… she hated how everything had a diagnosis or pill now, how people who didn’t fit in with modern, lazy society were just prescribed medications without a second thought… she hated how old, reliable cars were replaced with cheap hybrid vehicles… she hated how everything could be done online, so that people could just ignore each other… the world was becoming much more convenient, but at the same time, less human, and her teenage life was considered nostalgic history now.Hanging her head low, avoiding the slightly confused stare of the cab driver through the rear view mirror, she started crying uncontrollably, her tears soaking the collar of her coat as the sun blared through the windows in a warm light. "
128 " Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it...We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return and need his shoes. In the version of grief we imagine, the model will be 'healing.' A Certain forward movement will prevail. The worst days will be the earliest days. We imagine that the moment to most severely test us will be the funeral, after which this hypothetical healing will take place. When we anticipate the funeral we wonder about failing to 'get through it,' rise to the occasion, exhibit the 'strength' that invariably gets mentioned as the correct response to death. We anticipate needing to steel ourselves for the moment: will I be able to greet people, will I be able to leave the scene, will I be able even to get dressed that day? We have no way of knowing that this will not be the issue. We have no way of knowing that the funeral itself will be anodyne, a kind of narcotic regression in which we are wrapped in the care of others and the gravity and meaning of the occasion. Nor can we know ahead of the fact the unending absence that follows, the void, the very opposite of meaning, the relentless succession of moments during which we will confront the experience of meaninglessness itself. "
― Joan Didion
129 " With a snarling face, fangs and blood red eyes, she had lunged at him and secured her mouth to his throat before he had even had time enough to scream. It had been the most terrifying moment of his life. Only two thoughts had occupied his mind; surviving to see Angela again, and the sensation of hearing his own heart beat fade away. Amelia had fed from him for what felt like hours, but that he knew couldn’t have been very long, as Angela never came to see what had become of him. He lay in the dirt, with Amelia hunched over his limp body, with the sound of his own, failing breath in his ears and the bloodthirsty sound of someone sucking out his blood. "
― Rebecca Boucher , Novel Hearts