Making Sense Is Overrated

Unfortunately, confusing and crazy ordeals are often the only way to get to the bottom of incomprehensible things.

― K.A. Reynolds, The Land of Yesterday

Ambivalence is a more natural state of mind than we ordinarily assume. Wanting and not wanting the same thing at the same time is so common that we might even consider it a baseline condition of human consciousness.

― Jamie Holmes, Nonsense: The Power of Not Knowing

I agree that two times two makes four is an excellent thing; but if we are dispensing praise, then two times two makes five is sometimes a most charming little thing as well.

― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground

Books don't have anything in them about the present, only the past and the future. This is one of the biggest defects of books. Someone should invent a book that tells you what's happening at this moment, as you read. It must be harder to write that sort of book than the futuristic ones that predict the future. That's why they don't exist. And that's why I have to go and investigate reality.

― Juan Pablo Villalobos, Down the Rabbit Hole

Facts without context are like individuals without society. Just as an individual must find his or her place in society or else they are useless, a fact must find its place in an argument or else it serves no true purpose.

― Tom King, The Vision, Volume 1: Little Worse Than A Man

I sort of like the idea of someone keeping a dossier on me. It's like outsourcing your own diary. Let someone else do the writing while I focus on the living. Genius, right?

― J.C. Carleson, Placebo Junkies

New things always look weird to begin with. Imagine being the first monkey who grew a thumb. No one realized how useful that was going to be. They probably all ran around yelling, "Look at Clive's hand! It's icky, hit it with a rock!" Thousands of years later, we're texting with it and Clive has the last laugh.

― Nat Luurtsema, Goldfish

There is nothing more terrifying than the absoluteness of one who believes he's right.

― Libba Bray, The Diviners

It’s in those moments of admitting and accepting your own terribleness that you realize other people can be terrible too. And if they can be terrible too, then maybe they can be vulnerable too, caring too, and all the things that you are and hope to be.

― Aaron Starmer, Spontaneous

Hair is like a corpse you wear on your head while you're alive.

― Juan Pablo Villalobos, Down the Rabbit Hole

I blame my parents. It's their fault for raising me with a little guilt-demon living in my stomach. I can't ever just do something without having to worry about whether it's right. Now, don't worry, I can usually overcome it.

― Kevin Emerson, Carlos Is Gonna Get It

A lot of people seem nice when you first meet them. Then later you find out that they are evil villains who plan to take over the world.

― Dan Gutman, Miss Daisy Is Crazy!

Personally, no matter how tempting it might be, I make it a policy not to surgically bestow near invincibility upon the people who would most like to see me dead.

― Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Mind-Rain: Your Favorite Authors on Scott Westerfeld's Uglies Series

There's nothing wrong with nearly getting killed. Actually getting killed: now that would be annoying. But nearly getting killed is fine. I do it all the time and it's never done me any harm.

― Dave Shelton, A Boy and A Bear in a Boat

"It's interesting that you drew yourself with this little golden crown on your head. What does the crown mean to you?"
"That's not a crown," she'd told him. "That's a nimbus of outrage."

― Laura Ruby, The Shadow Cipher

People say that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade. This is why unsolicited advice should be left to the professionals, because if life gives you lemons but doesn't also give you a whole lot of sugar, you're going to end up with some pretty awful-tasting lemonade. You might as well advise people that if life gives them a bag of wet sand they should make a stained glass window.

― Cuthbert Soup, A Whole Nother Story

There are many different kinds of beauty in the world. Some beauty is very unusual and can even be scary. Most people don't understand that.

― Lesley M.M. Blume, Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties: A Practical Guide by Miss Edythe McFate

The gargoyle wanted to send you a pressed spider as a token of his affection, but I encouraged him to send pleasant words instead. He declined, arguing that spiders are easier to catch.

― Caroline Carlson, Magic Marks the Spot

All good children's stories are the same: young creature breaks rules, has incredible adventure, then returns home with the knowledge that aforementioned rules are there for a reason.
Of course, the actual message to the careful reader is: break rules as often as you can, because who the hell doesn't want to have an adventure?

― Brian K. Vaughan, Saga, Vol. 3

Sapiens rule the world because only they can weave an intersubjective web of meaning: a web of laws, forces, entities and places that exist purely in their common imagination. This web allows humans alone to organise crusades, socialist revolutions and human rights movements.

― Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

They think they're the only ones who understand the real truth about the world, and that it's everyone else who's been tricked. . . . The biggest problem we have is that people like to fool themselves into thinking that they could never be fooled.

― Laura Ruby, The Shadow Cipher

The hood made me realise that crime succeeds because crime does the one thing the government doesn’t do: crime cares. Crime is grassroots. Crime looks for the young kids who need support and a lifting hand. Crime offers internship programmes and part-time jobs and opportunities for advancement. Crime gets involved in the community. Crime doesn’t discriminate.

― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime and Other Stories

People in my town would laugh at the idea of calling books and music work. . . . How is it some men break their backs farming a dead land, whereas others sit in comfort and ruminate on stars and poetry?

― Julie C. Dao, Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

The nice thing about a book in a different language is that you can make it say whatever you want. The words are just pictures for your own words and all of a sudden the book is your book, it's your story that you're reading. That's how it is with all books, really, when you get down to it.

― Jimmy Cajoleas, Goldeline

We are all anthologies. We are each thousands of pages long, filled with fairy tales and poetry, mysteries and tragedy, forgotten stories in the back no one will ever read.

― Marisha Pessl, Neverworld Wake

Stories don't have points. They're lies for keeping the truth in. They're sort of rounded, not pointy at all.

― Rob Davis, The Motherless Oven

You think made-up stories have never resulted in actual casualties? Putting new ideas into another person's head is an aggressive act, and aggressive acts have consequences. Face it, you can be a writer or a pacifist, but you can't be both.

― Brian K. Vaughan, Saga, Vol. 9

I was half asleep but I smiled. In spite of all his irritating qualities, I couldn't help liking a man who despised a fictional character with such passion.

― David Benioff, City of Thieves

I love boats. Boats are great. You can get all kinds of places and meet all kinds of interesting people, and you never know if they're going to try to eat you or worship you.

― Ursula Vernon, Nurk: The Strange, Surprising Adventures of a (Somewhat) Brave Shrew

It's somewhat bizarre to learn that many of you think that other humans are somehow different enough to be hated and killed when in reality you're all tiresomely similar in outlook, needs and motivation, and differ only by peculiar habits, generally shaped by geographical circumstances.

― Jasper Fforde, The Eye of Zoltar

A Brief History of the Universe: Billions of days ago, atoms began joining together to form stars and planets. On these planets, cells came together to form plants, animals, and people, and then people started gathering to form civilizations. And do you know why all these atoms, cells, and people came together? Because nothing wants to be alone! The invisible force which controls the universe and sets all things in motion? It's called "loneliness!"

― Mark Russell, The Flintstones

Making sense is overrated. It's just confirming what people already think. Making new sense is more important.

― Rob Davis, The Can Opener’s Daughter

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Sometimes you can only understand others if you stand on your head