Scan barcode
A review by ella_holden_
Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li
5.0
p. 10 ‘you were the one better at hiding’
p. 12 ‘timeless is this world we are making, tenseless is its language’. ‘love is not made to last’
p. 16 ‘pass-me-ups’
p. 17 ‘who can say to love doesn’t also mean to disappoint and deceive? I said. Those who disappoint or deceive don’t always do so from love, he said.’
p. 19 ‘i don’t have to have days to live now. And yet I have to live in days, I said. I’m sorry, he said. Days: the easiest possession, requiring only automatic participation.’ ‘Never apologise, I said, for what you have let go’
p. 22 ‘It’s lazy minded of you to say you don’t believe in something that you don’t understand’
p. 26 ‘not running away together, not running away separately, but running into each other constantly’. ‘would you have found me had i decided to remain lost to you?’
p. 30 ‘Does one have to stay out of part of one’s own mind? I asked. If you don’t want to be out of your mine entirely, he said.’ ‘To love is to trespass’
p. 35 ‘sometimes what you make up is realer than the real’
p. 36 ‘leaves are always falling’
p. 37 ‘nature is not small.’ ‘People can look and look and look without seeing anything’. ‘Seeing without having to look’
p. 39 ‘the world never tires of dimming the bright and blunting the sharp’
p. 41 ‘grey and cold, gloomy. Precisely the weather I live, he said. I wish i could bake something’. ‘To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect’
p. 44 ‘don’t you see i want my life to be something more than long, I sang’
p. 45 ‘with some one else’s furniture staging some else’s life’
p. 47 ‘oh, people always die, alone or later’
p. 48 ‘what could i catch on this grey, wet morning? Not the smile on your face, not the light in your eyes, not a blue cat, not a purple penguin, no dust in the wind, not a thought whispering in your ears, so loud hah is had drowned out all the music of the world. What, my child, can i catch now, when all has become invisible?’
p. 53 ‘in the moment: a life made of today and today and today and today.’ ‘Time is like money. Don’t get into debt by spending what you don’t have.’
p. 54 ‘most people don’t want to admit failure so they keep taking more credits from more tomorrows and get into deeper debt’
p. 56 ‘why write, if you can feel? I always imagine writing is for people who don’t want to feel or don’t know how to. And reading? I asked. For those who do’
p. 67 ‘my mind is not a closed room. Mine has more windows, he said. What is outside your windows? All the good things you can’t see’
p. 70 ‘days where we live’
p. 73 ‘I feel quite settled. sedimented. What is it that’s sedimented? I asked. Everything about me that used to disturb me…I’m all clear now, pure and perfect, just the way i want’
p. 75 ‘perhaps human history is driven by the desire to fight against our fadable and erasable future’
p. 78 ‘one can stop being alive, but one’s self does not stop being itself’. ‘You cannot demand that everyone be perfect. I can forgive everyone for being imperfect. But not yourself. I tried, Mummy, I did try’
p. 79 ‘And who, my dear child, has taken the word loveable out of your dictionary and mine, and replaced it with perfect? I wish you had made me an enemy, rather than yourself… You can’t be that for me, Mummy, I’ve found a perfect enemy in myself.’
p. 85 ‘the tears were a veneer over the unspeakable’
p. 90 ‘preparing is not experiencing. Pre-living is not living’
p. 100 ‘I know my words are not enough to express my devastation at your loss and my words will not do much to alleviate your pain, but these words are all i have’
p. 103 ‘wishing you were somehow here again’. ‘Limited by our living selves’
p. 106 ‘there is much more sense and feeling involved in stupidity’
p. 110 ‘a noun does not always remain a wall’
p. 111 ‘are you assigned to play this incongruous music called life?’
p. 112 ‘I don’t mind that life is not perfect, I do mind that I cannot perfect myself in an imperfect life. Perfection is like a single snowflake, it melts. A perfectionist melts too.’
p. 116 ‘a liveable life, an inevitable death’
p. 117 ‘if we don’t have to earn our time, how easily we squander it.’ ‘well-spent time is overrated’
p. 119 ‘things you’re good at may not treat you well in return’. ‘They think of me as a shipwreck, don’t they?’
p. 120 ‘People are afraid of death, people are afraid of the dead, and people are afraid of unusual decisions. I wonder if fear is what keeps people going in life… Who can tell the difference between hope and fear?’
p. 121 ‘which, between hope and dear, had made life unlovable for him?’
p. 122 ‘can a ship sail when it is loaded with what it is not equipped to carry?’
p. 123 ‘you cannot undo many things in life’
p. 125 ‘every time someone says, Trust me, I want to say, Why should I?’ ‘how words waste space’
p. 127 ‘a childhood ends, he said. Even the best parents can’t change that’
p. 128 ‘If you don’t know the precise location of that somewhere, does it become nowhere?
It’s still somewhere.
What do you call a place between somewhere and nowhere?
Between somewhere and nowhere - on some days that place feels more abysmal than on other days.
Anywhere between somewhere and nowhere would still be somewhere.
Are you somewhere too?
Of course. Nowhere is like infinity and beyond. It’s possible to be closer if you try. It’s impossible to arrive nowhere’
p. 133 ‘any moment that comes after time is aftertime.
Are we in aftertime then?
I am, but not you.
Why not me?
You’ve said you live in days, so you are still in time. You can’t live in aftertime’
p. 134 ‘i thought we had prepared him to live’
p. 135 ‘how ignorant and happy i was beforetime’
p. 136 ‘you can’t step into the same river twice’
p. 139 ‘I prefer a world made of the perishable, not the inevitable.
Inevitable makes time more bearable.
Time doesn’t make sense if not for the perishable’
p. 140 ‘dreams are but prologue to days, epilogue to other days, written by our faltering minds’. ‘Fundamentally dreaming is injustice inflicted upon whoever is being dreamed of?’
p. 141 ‘if days are where we live, I will always want to know how people live in their days’
p. 142 ‘what do you do all day?
Oh the things you don’t know. Dreaming. Dreaming. Thinking. Dreaming.’
p. 143 ‘what do you have to bear?
Things that are always with me, with it without a physical body’
p. 145 ‘what if we don’t have to believe in anything, perhaps living only requires resolutions’. ‘time thus broken down makes quicksand…what you call quicksand is it reality…other people live on other kinds of quicksand’
p. 146 ‘what if an abyss can be made into a natural habitat?’ ‘what we need is not a light that will lead us somewhere, but the resolution to be nowhere, even if it’s ever and forever’. ‘Life is imperfect, but it does mean something, no?
Yes, it’s a consolation prize, but i don’t live for consolation prizes’
p. 153 ‘a mins that sees no path or direction to flee despair can be expanded nevertheless.’ ‘Wishing only wounds the heart’
p. 156 ‘she represents the quintessential never-lasting news of good old time’
p. 158 ‘he wanted his heart to stop beating and his mind to rest…just to know how it would feel, released from destruction… breathing his bronzen breath at the azury centre of time.’
p. 160 ‘words not meant for me but picked up by me in any case’
p. 161 ‘writing fiction is to eavesdrop on your characters’ hearts’
p. 163 ‘will the memory paper catch words get to be said?’
p. 167 ‘words fall short, yes, but sometimes their shadows can reach the unspeakable… we look for some depth in words when we can’t find it in the three-dimensional world, no?’
p. 168 ‘here is where you are, not where i am. I am in fiction, he said. I am fiction now’
p. 170 ‘if one is not lost, can one be found again?’.
p. 12 ‘timeless is this world we are making, tenseless is its language’. ‘love is not made to last’
p. 16 ‘pass-me-ups’
p. 17 ‘who can say to love doesn’t also mean to disappoint and deceive? I said. Those who disappoint or deceive don’t always do so from love, he said.’
p. 19 ‘i don’t have to have days to live now. And yet I have to live in days, I said. I’m sorry, he said. Days: the easiest possession, requiring only automatic participation.’ ‘Never apologise, I said, for what you have let go’
p. 22 ‘It’s lazy minded of you to say you don’t believe in something that you don’t understand’
p. 26 ‘not running away together, not running away separately, but running into each other constantly’. ‘would you have found me had i decided to remain lost to you?’
p. 30 ‘Does one have to stay out of part of one’s own mind? I asked. If you don’t want to be out of your mine entirely, he said.’ ‘To love is to trespass’
p. 35 ‘sometimes what you make up is realer than the real’
p. 36 ‘leaves are always falling’
p. 37 ‘nature is not small.’ ‘People can look and look and look without seeing anything’. ‘Seeing without having to look’
p. 39 ‘the world never tires of dimming the bright and blunting the sharp’
p. 41 ‘grey and cold, gloomy. Precisely the weather I live, he said. I wish i could bake something’. ‘To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect’
p. 44 ‘don’t you see i want my life to be something more than long, I sang’
p. 45 ‘with some one else’s furniture staging some else’s life’
p. 47 ‘oh, people always die, alone or later’
p. 48 ‘what could i catch on this grey, wet morning? Not the smile on your face, not the light in your eyes, not a blue cat, not a purple penguin, no dust in the wind, not a thought whispering in your ears, so loud hah is had drowned out all the music of the world. What, my child, can i catch now, when all has become invisible?’
p. 53 ‘in the moment: a life made of today and today and today and today.’ ‘Time is like money. Don’t get into debt by spending what you don’t have.’
p. 54 ‘most people don’t want to admit failure so they keep taking more credits from more tomorrows and get into deeper debt’
p. 56 ‘why write, if you can feel? I always imagine writing is for people who don’t want to feel or don’t know how to. And reading? I asked. For those who do’
p. 67 ‘my mind is not a closed room. Mine has more windows, he said. What is outside your windows? All the good things you can’t see’
p. 70 ‘days where we live’
p. 73 ‘I feel quite settled. sedimented. What is it that’s sedimented? I asked. Everything about me that used to disturb me…I’m all clear now, pure and perfect, just the way i want’
p. 75 ‘perhaps human history is driven by the desire to fight against our fadable and erasable future’
p. 78 ‘one can stop being alive, but one’s self does not stop being itself’. ‘You cannot demand that everyone be perfect. I can forgive everyone for being imperfect. But not yourself. I tried, Mummy, I did try’
p. 79 ‘And who, my dear child, has taken the word loveable out of your dictionary and mine, and replaced it with perfect? I wish you had made me an enemy, rather than yourself… You can’t be that for me, Mummy, I’ve found a perfect enemy in myself.’
p. 85 ‘the tears were a veneer over the unspeakable’
p. 90 ‘preparing is not experiencing. Pre-living is not living’
p. 100 ‘I know my words are not enough to express my devastation at your loss and my words will not do much to alleviate your pain, but these words are all i have’
p. 103 ‘wishing you were somehow here again’. ‘Limited by our living selves’
p. 106 ‘there is much more sense and feeling involved in stupidity’
p. 110 ‘a noun does not always remain a wall’
p. 111 ‘are you assigned to play this incongruous music called life?’
p. 112 ‘I don’t mind that life is not perfect, I do mind that I cannot perfect myself in an imperfect life. Perfection is like a single snowflake, it melts. A perfectionist melts too.’
p. 116 ‘a liveable life, an inevitable death’
p. 117 ‘if we don’t have to earn our time, how easily we squander it.’ ‘well-spent time is overrated’
p. 119 ‘things you’re good at may not treat you well in return’. ‘They think of me as a shipwreck, don’t they?’
p. 120 ‘People are afraid of death, people are afraid of the dead, and people are afraid of unusual decisions. I wonder if fear is what keeps people going in life… Who can tell the difference between hope and fear?’
p. 121 ‘which, between hope and dear, had made life unlovable for him?’
p. 122 ‘can a ship sail when it is loaded with what it is not equipped to carry?’
p. 123 ‘you cannot undo many things in life’
p. 125 ‘every time someone says, Trust me, I want to say, Why should I?’ ‘how words waste space’
p. 127 ‘a childhood ends, he said. Even the best parents can’t change that’
p. 128 ‘If you don’t know the precise location of that somewhere, does it become nowhere?
It’s still somewhere.
What do you call a place between somewhere and nowhere?
Between somewhere and nowhere - on some days that place feels more abysmal than on other days.
Anywhere between somewhere and nowhere would still be somewhere.
Are you somewhere too?
Of course. Nowhere is like infinity and beyond. It’s possible to be closer if you try. It’s impossible to arrive nowhere’
p. 133 ‘any moment that comes after time is aftertime.
Are we in aftertime then?
I am, but not you.
Why not me?
You’ve said you live in days, so you are still in time. You can’t live in aftertime’
p. 134 ‘i thought we had prepared him to live’
p. 135 ‘how ignorant and happy i was beforetime’
p. 136 ‘you can’t step into the same river twice’
p. 139 ‘I prefer a world made of the perishable, not the inevitable.
Inevitable makes time more bearable.
Time doesn’t make sense if not for the perishable’
p. 140 ‘dreams are but prologue to days, epilogue to other days, written by our faltering minds’. ‘Fundamentally dreaming is injustice inflicted upon whoever is being dreamed of?’
p. 141 ‘if days are where we live, I will always want to know how people live in their days’
p. 142 ‘what do you do all day?
Oh the things you don’t know. Dreaming. Dreaming. Thinking. Dreaming.’
p. 143 ‘what do you have to bear?
Things that are always with me, with it without a physical body’
p. 145 ‘what if we don’t have to believe in anything, perhaps living only requires resolutions’. ‘time thus broken down makes quicksand…what you call quicksand is it reality…other people live on other kinds of quicksand’
p. 146 ‘what if an abyss can be made into a natural habitat?’ ‘what we need is not a light that will lead us somewhere, but the resolution to be nowhere, even if it’s ever and forever’. ‘Life is imperfect, but it does mean something, no?
Yes, it’s a consolation prize, but i don’t live for consolation prizes’
p. 153 ‘a mins that sees no path or direction to flee despair can be expanded nevertheless.’ ‘Wishing only wounds the heart’
p. 156 ‘she represents the quintessential never-lasting news of good old time’
p. 158 ‘he wanted his heart to stop beating and his mind to rest…just to know how it would feel, released from destruction… breathing his bronzen breath at the azury centre of time.’
p. 160 ‘words not meant for me but picked up by me in any case’
p. 161 ‘writing fiction is to eavesdrop on your characters’ hearts’
p. 163 ‘will the memory paper catch words get to be said?’
p. 167 ‘words fall short, yes, but sometimes their shadows can reach the unspeakable… we look for some depth in words when we can’t find it in the three-dimensional world, no?’
p. 168 ‘here is where you are, not where i am. I am in fiction, he said. I am fiction now’
p. 170 ‘if one is not lost, can one be found again?’.