Tao Lin

Novelist

1983-07-02

Quotes by Tao Lin

• ...one had to expect very little— almost nothing— from life, Aaron knew, one had to be grateful, not always trying to seize the days like some maniac of living, but to give oneself up, be seized by the days, the months and years, be taken up in the froth of sun and moon, some pale and smoothie-ed river-cloud of life, a long, drawn-out, gray sort of enlightenment, so that when it was time to die, one did not scream swear words and knock things down, did not make a scene, but went easily with understanding and tact, and quietly, in a lightly pummeled way, having been consoled–having allowed to be consoled–by the soft, generous, worthlessness of it all, having allowed to be massaged by the daily beating of life, instead of just beaten.

  Read quote

• As a child, she'd always had what she imagined were fascinating thoughts, but didn't ever say them. Once, as a little girl, at recess, she thought that if she ran very fast at a pole and then caught it and swung quickly around, part of her would keep going, and she would become two girls.

  Read quote

• sad things are beautiful only from a distancetherefore you just want to get away from themfrom a distance of one hundred and thirty years ....i'm going to distance myself until the world is beautiful

  Read quote

• Matt would stare at Andrew for 10 minutes. It's depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat.

  Read quote

• It sometimes seemed to him that for love to work, it had to be fair, that he should tell only half the joke, and she the other half. Otherwise, it would not be love, but something completely else–pity or entertainment, or stand-up comedy.

  Read quote

• loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shapeof a helicopter the same size as the helicopterand that's it's only skilland it isn't good enoughbut it's still amazing.

  Read quote

• There was an enjoyment to being alive, he felt, that because of an underlying meaninglessness–like how a person alone for too long cannot feel comfortable when with others; cannot neglect that underlying the feeling of belongingness is the certainty, really, of loneliness, and nothingness, and so experiences life in that hurried, worthless way one experiences a mistake–he could no longer get at.

  Read quote

• It sometimes seemed to him that for love to work, it had to be fair, that he should tell only half the joke, and she the other half. Otherwise, it would not be love, but something completely else–pity or entertainment, or stand-up comedy.

  Read quote

• sad things are beautiful only from a distancetherefore you just want to get away from themfrom a distance of one hundred and thirty years ....i'm going to distance myself until the world is beautiful

  Read quote

• Matt would stare at Andrew for 10 minutes. It's depressing that people are different. Everyone should be one person, who should then kill itself in hand-to-hand combat.

  Read quote

• loneliness can fly a helicopter through a cut-out shapeof a helicopter the same size as the helicopterand that's it's only skilland it isn't good enoughbut it's still amazing.

  Read quote

• There was an enjoyment to being alive, he felt, that because of an underlying meaninglessness–like how a person alone for too long cannot feel comfortable when with others; cannot neglect that underlying the feeling of belongingness is the certainty, really, of loneliness, and nothingness, and so experiences life in that hurried, worthless way one experiences a mistake–he could no longer get at.

  Read quote

• As a child, she'd always had what she imagined were fascinating thoughts, but didn't ever say them. Once, as a little girl, at recess, she thought that if she ran very fast at a pole and then caught it and swung quickly around, part of her would keep going, and she would become two girls.

  Read quote

• ...one had to expect very little— almost nothing— from life, Aaron knew, one had to be grateful, not always trying to seize the days like some maniac of living, but to give oneself up, be seized by the days, the months and years, be taken up in the froth of sun and moon, some pale and smoothie-ed river-cloud of life, a long, drawn-out, gray sort of enlightenment, so that when it was time to die, one did not scream swear words and knock things down, did not make a scene, but went easily with understanding and tact, and quietly, in a lightly pummeled way, having been consoled–having allowed to be consoled–by the soft, generous, worthlessness of it all, having allowed to be massaged by the daily beating of life, instead of just beaten.

  Read quote

• I don't view my memory as accurate or static - and, in autobiographical fiction, my focus is still on creating an effect, not on documenting reality - so 'autobiographical,' to me, is closer in meaning to 'fiction' than 'autobiography.'

  Read quote