241 Quotes by Hanya Yanagihara

But then, once you agree, it is necessary that you, the cajoler, move into the realm of self-deception, because you can see that it is costing them, you can see how much they don't want to be here, you can see that the act of existing is depleting for them, and then you have to tell yourself every day: I am doing the right thing.

..how hard it is to keep alive someone who doesn't want to stay alive. First you try logic ("You have so much to live for"), and then you try guilt ("You owe me"), and then you try anger, and threats, and pleading ("I'm old; don't do this to an old man"). But then, once they agree, it is necessary that you, the cajoler, move into the realm of self-deception, because you can see that it is costing them, you can see how much they don't want to be here..

And so I try to be kind to everything I see, and in everything I see, I see him.

I admired how she knew, well before I did, that the point of a child is not what you hope he will accomplish in your name but the pleasure that he will bring you, whatever form it comes in, even if it is a form that is barely recognisable as pleasure at all - and, more important, the pleasure that you will be privileged to bring him.

We all say we want our kids to happy, only happy, and healthy, but we don't want that. We want them to be like we are, or better than we are. We as humans are very unimaginative in that sense. We aren't equipped for the possibility that they might be worse.

We are so old, we have become young again.

All the movies with young people were about wanting sex; all the movies with old people were about wanting sex. He would watch these films and feel defeated. When did you get to stop wanting to have sex?

Everyone had been so much more entertaining then. What had happened?Age, he guessed, And with it: Jobs. Money. Children. The things to forestall death, the things to ensure one's relevance, the things to comfort and provide context and content. The march forward, one dictated by biology and convention, that not even the most irreverent mind could withstand.

What he knew, he knew from books, and books lied, they made things prettier.