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.
No battle is ever won ... victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.
...this is a hard world to be ludicrous in, with so many human beings so reluctant to laugh, so incapable of thought, so eager to believe and snarl and hate.
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
The history of all previous societies has been the history of class struggles.
Those instrumental goods which should serve to maintain the life and health of all human beings should be produced by the least possible labour of all.
Let us examine our attitude toward peace itself. Too many of us think it is impossible. Too many think it unreal. But that is a dangerous, defeatist belief. It leads to the conclusion that war is inevitable, that mankind is doomed, that we are gripped by forces we cannot control. We need not accept that view. Our problems are manmade; therefore they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as be wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
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