May, Simon

Thinking Aloud

Simon May

How marvellous to be seen; how perilous to be dreamt of.

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Almost everything can be tolerated—as long as we do not know what we want.

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A real listener hears you even when you keep quiet.

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Everything beautiful feels at once intimate, unreachable and fated—and that is how it casts its spell.

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Apology as anaesthesia.

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Modesty shields us from others, humility from ourselves.

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To create a persona mix four parts fakery with one part sincerity and stir well.

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Most virtues, untamed, can become as tyrannical as any vice—but because they fight for what we consider good it is much harder to detect their trail of destruction.

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The past—like unrequited love—is always buried alive.

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All ways home are a detour.

 

Selected from Simon May’s book, Thinking Aloud: A Collection of Aphorisms (Alma Books, 2009)

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