Simon Van Booy

“Like surgeons trying to save a life, the conservators and preservers at New York City museums dedicate themselves to ensuring the longevity of works of art for public view.”

“Writers are often alone when they work. Hours pass in silence as one long moment; light fades as day turns back to face the coming night.”

“I wanted to explain that trusting is harder than being trusted.”

“She said that one day they would be very old, that the world would be a different place, but it would always be their world, and that the time apart now would be a nightmare from which they would recover - desperation buried under years of happiness.”

“I think people would be happier if they admitted things more often. In a sense we are all prisoners of some memory, or fear, or disappointment - we are all defined by something we can’t change.”

“Dave once asked me what blind people dream about. Mostly in sound and feeling, I replied. At night I fall in love with a voice, and then wake to a feeling of physical loss. Sometimes I close my eyes to a chorus of “Happy Birthday!” The smell of cake and the sound of feet under the table. I awake in a body that’s too big. I also dream in motion and sensation. My father’s boat and the snore of the mast; the rough fabric of the safety harness and the rip of Velcro. The sun on my legs. And endless stretch of water impossible to imagine.”

“I find hunger more interesting than accomplishment.”

“But those who seek only reassurance from life will never be more than tourists—seeing everything and trying to possess what can only be felt.Beauty is the shadow of imperfection.”

“Every moment is the paradox of now or never.”

“The very best and the very worst of life will come from [their] ability to love strangers.”

“I was living in a large apartment with no furniture, just a typewriter, and because I had nothing else to do with my time, it made me take my writing seriously.”

“...I like stories very much,” the priest said. “They help me understand myself better.”

“Single parenting is sometimes just a case of sitting around by yourself in mild despair, not knowing what to do.”

“Every parent, no matter how cultured or sophisticated, will one day succumb to a child's pleas to visit Walt Disney World Resort.”

“It is the afternoon of my birthday, but still the morning of my life.”

“Shoes are a neutral blessing for us because feet generally aren't regarded as a place where the battle for self-esteem is won or lost. Feet don't change size when the body does through the natural ageing process.”

“In the end I didn't know who I was crying for, but it was something my body wanted to do, as though trying to digest grief.”

“Libraries are the ultimate restaurants for brain food. I sleep better knowing there are libraries. I would take a bullet for a librarian.”

“Children are the closest we have to wisdom, and they become adults the moment that final drop of everything mysterious is strained from them.”

“Music helps us understand where we have come from but, more importantly, what has happened to us.”