The world was ending then, it's ending still, and I'm happy to belong to it again.
Interpretation
This quote reflects a sense of acceptance and appreciation for life amidst its inevitable challenges and endings.
In this quote, Jonathan Franzen captures the duality of existence: while the world faces constant endings and changes, there is a profound joy in being a part of it. It suggests that even in difficult times, finding happiness and belonging is possible and valuable, highlighting the beauty of life despite its transience.
In practice
In a speech about resilience during challenging times.
Every good writer I know needs to go into some deep, quiet place to do work that is fully imagined. And what the Internet brings is lots of vulgar data. It is the antithesis of the imagination. It leaves nothing to the imagination.
The problem was money and the indignities of life without it. Every stroller, cell phone, Yankees cap, and SUV he saw was a torment. He wasn't covetous, he wasn't envious. But without money he was hardly a man.
Each new thing he encountered in life impelled him in a direction that fully convinced him of its rightness, but then the next new thing loomed up and impelled him in the opposite direction, which also felt right. There was no controlling narrative: he seemed to himself a purely reactive pinball in a game whose only object was to stay alive for staying alive's sake.
If multiculturalism succeeds in making us a nation of independently empowered tribes, each tribe will be deprived of the comfort of victimhood and be forced to confront human limitation for what it is: a fixture of life.
To read is to have experiences; every book changes my life at least a little bit. The first time I can remember this happening was when I was 10, with a biography of Thomas Edison.
Good novels are produced by people who voluntarily isolate themselves and go deep, and report from the depths on what they find.
Life is filled with detours and dead ends, trials and challenges of every kind. Each of us has likely had times when distress, anguish, and despair almost consumed us.
My cancer scare changed my life. I'm grateful for every new, healthy day I have. It has helped me prioritize my life.
Life is a journey, not a destination; there are no mistakes, just chances we've taken.
There is really only one way to deal with Misery. Accept her presence. Like most experiences in life, we must acknowledge the passage gracefully and let her move through our lives because she brings with her a hidden gift.
From a boy_x000D_ _x000D_ I gloated on existence. Earth to me_x000D_ _x000D_ Seemed all-sufficient and my sojourn there_x000D_ _x000D_ One trembling opportunity for joy.
No matter that you anticipate a thing; you get so used to it as part of the future that its actuality, its arrival, its force and presence, startles you, takes you by surprise, as would a ghost suddenly appearing in the room wearing familiar perfume and boots.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.