Last week, I wrote about my favorite books. Number-one on that list was a collection of short stories called No One Belongs Here More than You by Miranda July.
While trying to find a quote to attach to its synopsis, I found myself not being able to choose one. There are so many passages that have inspired me to create stories as well. I wanted to share them, and recommend this book to everyone.
This book is rich with so many beautiful quotes. Here are just a few of them.
1. Some people are uncomfortable with silences. Not me. I’ve never cared much for call and response. Sometimes I will think of something to say and then I ask myself: is it worth it? And it just isn’t.
2. He seemed to be waiting for me to move forward. Weren't we all.
3. I laughed and said, Life is easy. What I meant was, Life is easy with you here, and when you leave, it will be hard again.
4. This person mourns the fact that she has ruined her one chance to be loved by everyone; as this person climbs into bed, the weight of this tragedy seems to bear down upon this person's chest. And it is a comforting weight, almost human in heft. This person sighs. This person's eyes begin to close, this person sleeps.
5. But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.
6. Some people need a red carpet rolled out in front of them in order to walk forward into friendship. They can't see the tiny outstretched hands all around them, everywhere, like leaves on trees.
7. It is terrible to have to ask for anything ever. We wish we were something that needed nothing, like paint. But even paint needs repainting.
8. It was a small thing, but it was a thing, and things have a way of either dying or growing, and it wasn’t dying.
9. If you are sad, ask yourself why you are sad. Then pick up the phone and call someone and tell him the answer to the 10. question. If you don't know anyone, call the operator and tell him. Most people don't know that the operator has to listen, it is a law. Also, the postman is not allowed to go inside your house, but you can talk to him on public property for up to four minutes or until he wants to go, whichever comes first.
10. Would she understand that time had stopped while she was gone.
11. In the recurring dream everything has already fallen down, and I’m underneath. I’m crawling, sometimes for days, under the rubble. And as I crawl I realize that this one was the Big One. It was the earthquake that shook the whole world, and every single thing was destroyed. But this isn’t the scary part. That part always comes right before I wake up. I am crawling and then suddenly I remember: the earthquake happened years ago. This pain, this dying, this is just normal. This is how life is. In fact, I realize, there never was an earthquake. Life is just this way, broken, and I am crazy for dreaming something else.
12. She bludgeoned me with a look of such limitless compassion that I immediately began to cry.
13. I was going to die and it was taking forever.
14. I went to work the next day out of curiosity, as people return to their villages after the war to see what is left.
15. Sometimes I lie in bed trying to decide which of my friends I truly care about, and I always come to the same conclusion: none of them.
16. I gave him things I wasn't sure I even had.
17. Nothing really mattered and nothing could be lost
18. I do this before I bring someone new into my life; I try to get a sense of who I am so that I can make it easier for them to know me.
19. I decided right there in the darkness of the hallway, that I wanted this.
20. So this was what it was like not be me.
21. Inelegantly and without my consent, time passed.
22. [I looked into] her eyes. What did I fear I would find there? Meanness and gloating? Slyness? Shame? They were sparkling with the old love, the greatest love of my lifetime. And they were triumphant.
