Exurb1a Quotes

• “No one is guaranteed happiness. It's not a human right. It's a house you have to build yourself. Your family and friends can help, but they're all busy building their own houses too. You're just bitter because you built a shit house.”

  Exurb1a

  72 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Hell isn't a fire pit but a museum of regrets.”

  Exurb1a

  35 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement

• “There's no grand plan and no one's in charge. It's all just fumbling about in the dark, and half the time you're not even sure why you're fumbling. You're so desperate for something to pin your peace of mind to that you'll do all sorts of stupid things in its name. You don't mean to break up a marriage, but if breaking it up might let you sleep like a normal person again, suddenly you start considering it. You don't mean to become a drunk, but if drink is the only way you can keep a handle on some tiny compartment of your life then it's straight for the bottle.”

  Exurb1a

  25 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “In the beginning there was Nothing but Nothing is unstable so Something came about.”

  Exurb1a

  17 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement

• “Most humans were not malicious, only drastically misguided and desperate in their loneliness. They learned at some point that there was an eccentric core to their personality and that it was possible no one else shared their own brand of eccentricity. They put up screens around that core to shield from embarrassment and shame. For all the pompous forms in which writers and musicians have described it, love was surely that moment when the screens might come down in front of another human, if only for a moment, and freely give them a long, unfettered look into the true middle where the fear and anguish lives.”

  Exurb1a

  14 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “What a lovely thing utopia is when you were too young to remember the horror that came with it.”

  Exurb1a

  13 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement
• “Let them be brave, the old man thought, a prayer to no one in particular – whoever they are, my great grandchildren – let them be brave so they might look back upon this planet from a distant star one day and have forged their own, better place. Let them be brave so they might choose Compassion over Stupidity each and every time. Let their genes hum with the Insatiable Need to Know That Which They Don't Know Yet. God, let them be better than us at the very least.”

  Exurb1a

  11 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “There is evil in the world, yet God claims he loves us. If he could remove that evil but chooses not to, then he is not all-loving as we're told he is. If he wants to remove that evil from the world but cannot, then why do we call him all-powerful? In any case, he's not truly God and there's nothing to be frightened of. Chin up.” “Goodnight”

  Exurb1a

  10 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement

• “In all things, across all avenues, a choice must be made: whether to follow love, truth, or power. That choice will consume the chooser. If he follows only love then his wellbeing will be constantly at the mercy of another, though his highs will be sublime. If he follows truth then it will be a lonely journey, but potentially a noble one. If he should follow power though, not only will he come to know a desperate and revolting loneliness, but he will also never experience even a drop of satisfaction in anything”

  Exurb1a

  10 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Don't be so foolish to believe empires are built on stone. They're on bamboo stilts at best.”

  Exurb1a

  9 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement

• “There is a kind of bravery to our condition, I reckon: brought into being without an explanation, in a potentially infinite and apparently dead universe, and expected to just get on with it as though nothing strange is going on. Well it fucking is. And it's all right to have a meltdown about the whole affair from time to time, faced with the pressures of modern existence, trying to be a good human and a good worker and a good son/daughter/parent, trying to be a good citizen, trying to be wise without condescension but uninhibited without recklessness, trying to just muddle through without making any silly decisions, trying to align with the correct political opinions, trying to stay thin, trying to be attractive, trying to be smart, trying to find the ideal partner, trying to stay financially secure, trying to just find some modest corner of meaning and belonging and sanity to go and sit in, and all the while living on the edge of dying forever.”

  Exurb1a

  9 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “It's funny, you don't convince the living to behave in a proper way; you just wait for them to die and hope their children grow up a little kinder and wiser than their parents.”

  Exurb1a

  9 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement

• “The mayfly lives for about 24 hours. From the perspective of the universe, perhaps the human race is on a similar fleeting timescale. It took a long time to get to this point. There have been enormous sacrifices. We're all sat around being the product of billions of years of chance and millions of years of biological evolution. But today, this moment, now, we're here. We can wander around and do stuff and make stuff and have a jolly old time if we like. We're alive and we're looking damn fine. We have enormous, self-aware brains. We inhabit very clever fleshy suits designed by the universe herself. We've got the capability for greatness. We've got the capacity to enjoy a million unique stimuli. We've arrived at the party. We exist. And we can take walks if we want. So please go take a walk; I hope it's a nice one. And let’s not waste our day out in the cosmos.”

  Exurb1a

  8 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “I fear that on my last day, on my deathbed, that is when the meaning of things will enter the room and kiss my forehead and whisper into my ear what it was I should have done with my life, and how I should've conducted myself. Hell isn't a fire pit but a museum of regrets.”

  Exurb1a

  7 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement
• “With the right ears even a lesser creature can hear the song. It is sung constantly, from the heart of each atom and star. The galaxies hum of shape and form in their essence. That is their secret. The particles whisper of the nature of proper interactions. That is their game. And during a storm, in the forest, on the right night, it is no secret that the leaves all sing of God.”

  Exurb1a

  7 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “If I was in hell, would I know?”

  Exurb1a

  6 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement
• “Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they’ll never sit in.”

  Exurb1a

  6 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Happy people are just people you aren't acquainted enough with yet to know how miserable they really are.”

  Exurb1a

  4 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement

• “It's fun to think that one day our great, great grandchildren may get that much closer to understanding what the hell creation is doing here in the first place, and glimpsing the underlying structure and nature of matter itself. Hopefully they won't live with the same existential horrors we all quietly face today in our own lives. 
   
  There is a kind of bravery to our condition, I reckon: brought into being without an explanation, in a potentially infinite and apparently dead universe, and expected to just get on with it as though nothing strange is going on. Well it fucking is. And it's all right to have a meltdown about the whole affair from time to time, faced with the pressures of modern existence, trying to be a good human and a good worker and a good son/daughter/parent, trying to be a good citizen, trying to be wise without condescension but uninhibited without recklessness, trying to just muddle through without making any silly decisions, trying to align with the correct political opinions, trying to stay thin, trying to be attractive, trying to be smart, trying to find the ideal partner, trying to stay financially secure, trying to just find some modest corner of meaning and belonging and sanity to go and sit in, and all the while living on the edge of dying forever. 
   
  We're all in the same strange boat, grappling with the same strange condition. But it isn't quite so scary if we all do it together. So let's do it together.”

  Exurb1a

  4 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “self-consciousness was the product of a positive feedback loop between perception and reflection, the two eventually amplifying each other into a cycle that occurred so quickly neither could be separated from the other.”

  Exurb1a

  4 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement
• “However we feel about this, Arcadia was built with pure autonomy in mind. Autonomy is only true autonomy when you allow others to go in directions you don’t condone. All else is just ethical masturbation.”

  Exurb1a

  4 Copy to clipboard Copy quote
• “Until that hungry black god eats me up. Now I spend the centuries circling into it like a penny in one of those coin spirals at an arcade;”

  Exurb1a

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement

• “Look, here.” It was a mound and inside the mound were black insects, popping out of the mound then crawling back in. Some were skirting the surrounding dirt, bringing back sticks and pebbles. “They're called mitwicks. Do you like them?” “I thought you'd found something,” Ushko muttered. “I have. Look at them. Do you know what they do?” “No.” “They live for about four hundred days. They choose a queen. She doesn't have babies, but she can give orders. She orders them all about to pick things up and bring them back. They build a mound together and inside they fill it with the best sticks and pebbles they can find. And when it's perfect, when they've built the perfect home and everything's just right, do you know what they do?” “No.” “They die.”

  Exurb1a

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

• “It is safe to say that the message spoke of a common shape to all the processes of the world, and insisted there was a unity to all explanations. It confirmed that all phenomena are expressions of a single phenomenon, and while all droplets consider themselves independent, they are nonetheless still ocean through and through.
  In that message the great suspicions were vindicated and the old cliches were jettisoned. The hymn of the world was notated and an invitation to join the choir extended. The shape of Being was outlined in all its myriad forms and the whole was expressed in the part.
  With the right ears even a lesser creature can hear the song. It is sung constantly, from the heart of each atom and star.
  The galaxies hum of shape and form in their essence. That is their secret.
  The particles whisper of the nature of proper interactions. That is their game.
  And during a storm, in the forest, on the right night, it is no secret that the leaves all sing of God.”

  Exurb1a

  3 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement

Advertisement
• “You wouldn't understand.
  Oh shut up, I loved just as well as you in my early years. But to court a married woman, that takes a certain shade of stupidity.”

  Exurb1a

  2 Copy to clipboard Copy quote

Advertisement