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.
The universe hands you opportunities for a while, and if you don't take them, the universe says to itself, 'Oh I see, this person doesn't like opportunities' and stops giving them to you.
He had noticed that events were cowards: they didn't occur singly, but instead they would run in packs and leap out at him all at once.
Sport is a wonderful metaphor for life. Of all the sports that I played - skiing, baseball, fishing - there is no greater example than golf, because you're playing against yourself and nature.
If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
Duck, big brother! Here comes another day!
I want every day to be life for the living, not just traipsing through it existing. I'm just interested in life and the world and exploring.
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