chaliceinneverland

[chaliceinneverland]

I can’t imagine starting afresh somewhere new. Somewhere unfamiliar. I’m nervous though. I’ve been away so long. How will it feel? Being normal again. I’m jittery at the thought of mixing with people. I’ve got too used to my own company, being at home, filling my time. ‘Pottering around,’ Mum used to call it; ‘hiding myself away,’ she says now, but in my flat the jagged unease I carry with me isn’t quite so sharp. But life goes on, doesn’t it? And if I don’t force myself to start living again now I’m afraid I never will.

[chaliceinneverland]

‘Fine,’ I say, although that couldn’t be further from the truth. I have so many emotions waiting to pour out of me, but whenever I’m here, words tie themselves into knots on my tongue, and however much I want to properly open up, I never really do.

[chaliceinneverland]

“I tell you, I was in another little shop uptown for two hours before someone came to help me and this young man you have here was a wonderful and gracious host to me. And knowledgeable too.”

I’d like to tell her that in both bookstores and coffee shops, it’s actually polite to leave browsers and readers alone. When you harass people and offer to help them too much, they feel like you’re nudging them out the door. This lady doesn’t know anything about the world and she’s still raving about this friendly young man and I would like to tell her that overeager Curtis (did he start doing meth or something?) has actually driven customers away today because most people don’t want to be interrupted when they’re reading the first few pages of a novel. Oh, I want her to know that Curtis smokes pot four times a day and steals bicycles and fences them for spare cash. I could tell her that he is late every fucking shift and that he shits in the bathroom on a regular basis (rude), and that he’s cheated on every girlfriend he’s ever had.

- You, Caroline Kepnes

[chaliceinneverland]

No wonder you don’t get enough writing done. Peach is an albatross, constantly dragging you down with her troubles, her invented dramas. Right now that Blythe girl in your class is hunkered down over a pot of fuckface tea with a red pen and a tenth draft of a story. She’s listening to Mozart and lost in her work. You prefer life. You like the melodrama of this penthouse.

- You, Caroline Kepnes

[chaliceinneverland]

Each choice I made, or Lizzy made, was based on who we were or what we wanted. That’s all I ever have to keep doing, and not be so worried about choosing right or wrong, because there really isn’t a right or wrong, there’s only what IS. And if I don’t like the outcome, I just make another choice.

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

At the museum I learned that the universe is a lot more enormous than I thought. Every day, suns are born and die. Ours will die, too, one day. In the scheme of time, we are a new arrival to this place and are lucky to be here. In all of history, there will only be one Jeremy Fink (unless I do that time machine thing, and then there will be two of me, but I don’t really see that happening anymore), and only one of everyone else, too. I feel closer to Dog and Cat and Hamster and Ferret now, even though they are fish and I’m human. We are all connected at a deep, chemical level. We are inside the universe, and the universe is inside us. Even if we’re here for no other reason than because we’re here, I don’t think it relieves us of deciding what our own purpose here is. I still have to figure that out, but I don’t feel like I need to know right this instant anymore.

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

Are Heaven and Hell real, and not just something they scare you with in Sunday school? Or is the end just the end, like a blank screen, over and out, thanks for the ride?

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

What is life? Life is love. Do not make the mistake of thinking loving is easy; it is not. We must love ourselves, not just other people. We must be awake. Do not sleepwalk through your life. Enjoy it fully, because none of us gets out of here alive.”

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

What is life? Life is love. Do not make the mistake of thinking loving is easy; it is not. We must love ourselves, not just other people. We must be awake. Do not sleepwalk through your life. Enjoy it fully, because none of us gets out of here alive.”

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

“Does that work for you, Jeremy? Or is your existential crisis gonna continue?”

My brain is still spinning from all Dr. Grady has said. But spinning in a good way. “You know it takes me a long time to sort through things,” I reply. “I can’t make decisions at the drop of a hat like you can.”

“How true. Once,”Lizzy begins, scratching her belly now as we walk, “when we were six, Jeremy’s parents took us for ice cream. It took him so long to decide between chocolate and vanilla, that eventually the guy had to close the shop and he didn’t get anything.”

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

“Does that work for you, Jeremy? Or is your existential crisis gonna continue?”

My brain is still spinning from all Dr. Grady has said. But spinning in a good way. “You know it takes me a long time to sort through things,” I reply. “I can’t make decisions at the drop of a hat like you can.”

“How true. Once,”Lizzy begins, scratching her belly now as we walk, “when we were six, Jeremy’s parents took us for ice cream. It took him so long to decide between chocolate and vanilla, that eventually the guy had to close the shop and he didn’t get anything.”

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

“It may be not very appealing to think that we came from the same sludge that produced the amoeba, but we all have a common ancestor; our DNA shares the same chemical structure. You, I, and the fruit fly all have the same blueprint for life. All life on this planet is connected—some people can feel it more than others, on a spiritual level. If there is life on other planets, it will likely have evolved very differently from us. The chance of duplicating what happened here is close to zero.”

“How come?” I can’t help asking.

“Trust me,” Dr. Grady says. “We are here because over billions of years, countless variables fell into place, any of which could have taken another path. We are essentially a beautiful fluke, as are the millions of other species with which we share this planet. Our cells are composed of atoms and dust particles from distant galaxies, and from the billions of living organisms that inhabited this planet before us.”

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

“You need to be sure of the question you are asking. Sometimes people think they are looking for the meaning of life, when really they are looking for an understanding of why they are here. What their purpose is, the purpose of life in general. And that’s a much easier question to answer than the meaning of life.”

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

“To a flower, this photograph means nothing. So when you ask what is the meaning of life, there can be no answer that will apply to everyone and everything. What is a photograph, or a sunset, to a flower? We all bring our own perceptions, needs, and experiences to everything we do. We will all interpret an event, or a sunset, differently.”

He pauses, and I am trying to keep up with him. “Basically,” I say slowly, concentrating on my words. “What you’re saying is that it’s all relative. The meaning of the sunset, or of life itself, is different for everyone?”

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

There must be two types of choices. Choices you make that seem harmless but can wind up leading to someone’s father dying, like deciding to have one more cup of coffee that morning so you need to go out and buy more and then you cross the street without looking and make an oncoming car swerve into a telephone pole to avoid hitting you. And the other kind, when you know what you’re doing will lead to something either bad or good. Or in Mrs. Billingsly’s case, both. She lost her friend, but she found her husband.

It’s a good thing I make very few decisions in my life. What if I decided one day to eat three Butterfingers instead of two, and it led to war with Canada?

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

There must be two types of choices. Choices you make that seem harmless but can wind up leading to someone’s father dying, like deciding to have one more cup of coffee that morning so you need to go out and buy more and then you cross the street without looking and make an oncoming car swerve into a telephone pole to avoid hitting you. And the other kind, when you know what you’re doing will lead to something either bad or good. Or in Mrs. Billingsly’s case, both. She lost her friend, but she found her husband.

It’s a good thing I make very few decisions in my life. What if I decided one day to eat three Butterfingers instead of two, and it led to war with Canada?

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass

[chaliceinneverland]

I do not like surprises. I won’t watch scary movies. I won’t answer the phone unless I can see who is calling on caller ID. I don’t even like it when someone says “Guess what?” and then waits for you to guess. Surprises make me nervous. Once you’ve had a real surprise, one that knocks the wind out of you and changes your life, all the little surprises remind you of that big one.

- Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Wendy Mass