And it was beautiful.
I absolutely love his writing. This might be my new favorite book.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
“We laughed and laughed, together and separately, out loud and silently, we were determined to ignore whatever needed to be ignored, to build a new world from nothing if nothing in our world could be salvaged, it was one of the best days of my life, a day during which I lived my life and didn’t think about my life at all.”
“Well, what would happen if a plane dropped you in the middle of the Sahara Desert and you picked up a single grain of sand with tweezers and moved it one millimeter?” I said, “I’d probable die of dehydration.” He said, “I just mean right then, when you moved that single grain of sand. What would that mean?” I said, “I dunno, what?” He said, “think about it.” I thought about it. “I guess I would have moved a grain of sand.” “Which would mean?” “Which would mean I moved a grain of sand?” “Which would mean you changed the Sahara.” “So?” “So? So the Sahara is a vast desert. And it has existed for million of years. And you changed it!” “That’s true!” I said, sitting up. “I changed the Sahara!” “Which means?” he said. “What? Tell me.” “Well, I’m not talking about moving that one grain of sand one millimeter.” “Yeah?” “If you hadn’t done it, human history would have been one way…” “Uh-huh?” “but you did do it, so…?” I stood on the bed, pointed my fingers at the fake stars, and screamed: “I changed the course of human history!” “That’s right.” “I changed the universe!” “You did.” “I’m God!’ “You’re an atheist.” “I don’t exist!” I fell back onto the bed, into his arms, and we cracked up together.
“Humans are the only animal that blushes, laughs, has religion, wages war, and kisses with lips. So in a way, the more you kiss with lips, the more human you are.”
“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
An amazing book, for sure. I think I felt every possible emotion while reading it, and I love that in a book. It made me think about life, death, love, family, and the strangers that live around me.
As Oskar would say, "It kind of gave me heavy boots."
But I'm okay with that.
