Brian Cloutier
https://www.goodreads.com/lithp
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![Stanisław Lem](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1246185166i/10991._UX200_CR0,0,200,200_.jpg)
“On the surface, I was calm: in secret, without really admitting it, I was waiting for something. Her return? How could I have been waiting for that? We all know that we are material creatures, subject to the laws of physiology and physics, and not even the power of all our feelings combined can defeat those laws. All we can do is detest them. The age-old faith of lovers and poets in the power of love, stronger than death, that finis vitae sed non amoris, is a lie, useless and not even funny. So must one be resigned to being a clock that measures the passage of time, now out of order, now repaired, and whose mechanism generates despair and love as soon as its maker sets it going? Are we to grow used to the idea that every man relives ancient torments, which are all the more profound because they grow comic with repetition? That human existence should repeat itself, well and good, but that it should repeat itself like a hackneyed tune, or a record a drunkard keeps playing as he feeds coins into the jukebox...
Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
― Solaris
Must I go on living here then, among the objects we both had touched, in the air she had breathed? In the name of what? In the hope of her return? I hoped for nothing. And yet I lived in expectation. Since she had gone, that was all that remained. I did not know what achievements, what mockery, even what tortures still awaited me. I knew nothing, and I persisted in the faith that the time of cruel miracles was not past.”
― Solaris
![Yevgeny Zamyatin](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1330778824i/43298._CR0,34,200,200_.jpg)
“A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't even be worth reading.”
― We
― We
![Nassim Nicholas Taleb](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1206025993i/21559._UX200_CR0,28,200,200_.jpg)
“Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that’s what you are seeking.”
― The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
― The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
![Ursula K. Le Guin](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1244291425i/874602._UX200_CR0,21,200,200_.jpg)
“How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain plowland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply? What is love of one's country; is it hate of one's uncountry? Then it's not a good thing. Is it simply self-love? That's a good thing, but one mustn't make a virtue of it, or a profession... Insofar as I love life, I love the hills of the Domain of Estre, but that sort of love does not have a boundary-line of hate. And beyond that, I am ignorant, I hope.”
― The Left Hand of Darkness
― The Left Hand of Darkness
![Randall Munroe](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/authors/1406058780i/3089156._UX200_CR0,28,200,200_.jpg)
“Take wrong turns. Talk to strangers. Open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they are doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out. You're curious and smart and bored, and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures that you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember that you are always making up the future as you go.”
― xkcd: volume 0
― xkcd: volume 0
Brian’s 2023 Year in Books
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