I took comfort, as a kid, in knowing that things had always been as awful and as wonderful as they were now, that the world was always on the edge of total destruction.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the duality of life, where both hardships and joys coexist throughout history.
Michael Chabon's quote suggests a comforting understanding that the struggles and beauty of life are timeless. As a child, he found solace in recognizing that the world has always faced challenges and disasters, mixed with moments of wonder and joy. This perspective invites us to accept the complexities of existence, understanding that adversity and beauty are intrinsic to the human experience.
In practice
During a speech about resilience, one might quote Chabon to highlight the ever-present challenges of life.
A story begins with this nebulous feeling that’s hard to get a hold of and you’re testing your feelings and assumptions, testing what you believe. They end up turning into keepsakes and mementos –like amber in which a memory gets trapped.
I smoked and looked down at the bottom of Pittsburgh for a little while, watching the kids playing tiny baseball, the distant figures of dogs snatching at a little passing car, a miniature housewife on her back porch shaking out a snippet of red rug, and I made a sudden, frightened vow never to become that small, and to devote myself to getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
It's always thrilling to encounter the sweep of time in a work of fiction in a way that feels authentic and real.
[My dad] didn't do much apart from the traditional winning of bread. He didn't take me to get my hair cut or my teeth cleaned; he didn't make the appointments. He didn't shop for my clothes. He didn't make my breakfast, lunch, or dinner. My mom did all of those things, and nobody ever told her when she did them that it made her a good mother.
You need three things to become a successful novelist: talent, luck and discipline. Discipline is the one element of those three things that you can control, and so that is the one that you have to focus on controlling, and you just have to hope and trust in the other two.
The two dozen commonplace childhood photographs - snowsuit, pony, tennis racket, looming fender of a Dodge - were an inexhaustible source of wonder for him, at her having existed before he met her, and of sadness for his possessing nothing of the ten million minutes of that black-and-white scallop-edged existence save these few proofs.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
When you have increasing power of religious groups, oppression of women increases. Women are oppressed in all religions.
Philosophers are very severe towards other philosophers because they expect too much.
People don't become inured to what they are shown - if that's the right way to describe what happens - because of the quantity of images dumped on them. It is passivity that dulls feeling. The states described as apathy, moral or emotional anesthesia, are full of feelings; the feelings are rage and frustration.
All beings come from a mother's womb. We should have a clear realization of the oneness of all humanity.
The first thing to recognize not just about Afghanistan but about any poor undeveloped country is that as big as it looks on the map, it's much bigger when you're there.
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