Alia

Writer, Attorney, Technology Nerd, Fountain Pen Geek, and Corgi Owner

“Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.” ― Louis de Bernières, Corelli's Mandolin
“A person learns how to love himself through the simple acts of loving and being loved by someone else." -- Haruki Murakami, 1Q84 [I read 1Q84 a few years ago, but this quote rings true in light of recent conversations, so I wanted to remember it by putting it here. Photo of beach on Inis Oirr in April, 2018]
Droll thing life is— that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself— that comes too late— a crop of unextin-guishable regrets. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness (Wisehouse Classics Edition) (pp. 66-67). Wisehouse. Kindle Edition.
Dirk: What I'm saying is we followed the holistic road today already, Todd, and it ended up with a man dead. Todd: Wait, he's not dead. They said he had a minor heart attack. Dirk: He's very muchly more dead than he was when he woke up this morning. He's like five out of eight dead-ish! ~ Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, Season 2
People like Henry always came back, because people like Henry did know how to use. First they changed trust into need, then they changed need into a drug, and once that was done, they--what was Eddie's word for it?-- push. Yes. They pushed it. ~ Stephen King, The Drawing of Three (Dark Tower II)