Stay True: A Memoir (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

When you’re young, you do so many things hoping to be noticed. The way you dress or stand, the music played loud enough to catch the attention of another person who might know a song, too. And then there are things you do as you step out into the world, the real world full of strange adults, testing out what it means to be generous or thoughtful. I

Your obligation isn’t just to repay the gift according to a one-to-one ratio. You’re beholden to the “spirit of the gift,” a kind of shared faith. Every gesture carries a desire for connection, expanding one’s ring of associations.

Occasionally, I felt preemptively embarrassed about my private hysterics. I think the most depressing aspect of keeping a journal is thinking, or knowing, that one day I’ll be sitting somewhere reading this. Trying to relive some moments, but struck not by recaptured emotions, rather being struck by how damn deep I tried to sound at some point in t

We would have continued living, reminded of each other when a song came on during a movie, or on the radio, or whatever unforeseeable technology delivered us beauty.

That’s the dilemma of life: you have to find meaning, but by the same time, you have to accept the reality. How to handle the contradiction is a challenge to everyone of us.

I was quickly coming to the realization that my creative anxieties about whether there was anything original or new left to say about the world were quite generic.

I distinguished myself by the ferociousness of my attachments; there was something unique about my fascination with the film, something Ken couldn’t possibly understand. I was proprietary about liking things.

Moments that seem inconsequential until you have a reason to hold on to them, arrange them in a pattern.

we would come to recognize that concepts that seem natural to us are full of contradictions. Perhaps accepting this messiness would lead us to a more conscious and intelligent way of living.