"Look, Jasper," Dad said as we settled on a bench. "It's about time you found out how your grandparents… — Steve Toltz
"Look, Jasper," Dad said as we settled on a bench. "It's about time you found out how your grandparents fucked up, so you can work out what you did with the failures of your antecedents: did you run with them or ricochet against their errors, instead making your own huge gaffes in an opposing orbit? We all crawl feebly away from our grandparents' graves with their sad act of dying ringing in our ears, and in our mouths we have the aftertaste of their grossest violation against themselves: the shame of their unlived lives. It's only the steady accumulation of regrets and failures and our shame of our unlived lives that opens the door to understanding them. If by some quirk of fate we led charmed lives, bounding energetically from one masterful success to another, we'd never understand them! never!"
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More from this book
It's hard enough to go through life disappointing yourself every second day, but disappointing others takes it out of you too. That's why you should never answer the phone or the door. So you don't have to say no to whoever's on the other side.
People always say, "It's good to be a part of a something bigger than yourself," but you already are. You're part of a huge thing. The whole of humanity. That's enormous. But you can't see it, so you pick, what? An organization? A culture? A religion? That's not bigger than you. It's much, much smaller!
I think all people on their deathbeds should not forgive themselves for not committing suicide, even one day earlier. To let yourself be murdered by Nature's hand is the only real apathy there is.
