Charles Yu Quotes

Quotes about:

• If I could be half the person my dog is, I'd be twice the human I am.

  Charles Yu

  Dog, Half, Humans

  51 Copy quote

• You want to tell a story? Grow a heart. Grow two. Now, with the second heart, smash the first one into bits.

  Charles Yu

  Heart, Two, Stories

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.135, Vintage

  39 Copy quote

• Most people I know live their lives moving in a constant forward direction, the whole time looking backward.

  Charles Yu

  Moving, People, Constant

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.22, Vintage

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• I don't know how, or whether it is even possible to predict what the world will look like the next day. I simply have to close my eyes, and wait until tomorrow in order to find out.

  Charles Yu

  Eye, Order, Next Day

  Charles Yu (2012). “Sorry Please Thank You: Stories”, p.101, Vintage

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• We break ourselves up into parts. To lie to ourselves, to hide things from ourselves. You are not you. You are not what you think you are. You are bigger than you think. More complicated than you think.

  Charles Yu

  Lying, Thinking, Complicated

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition): A Novel”, p.140, Knopf

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• Everyone has a time machine. Everyone *is* a time machine. It's just that most people's time machines are broken. The strangest and hardest kind of time travel is the unaided kind. People get stuck, people get looped. People get trapped. But we are all time machines.

  Charles Yu

  People, Broken, Machines

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.164, Vintage

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• Enjoy the elastic present, which can accommodate as little or as much as you want to put in there. Stretch it out, live inside of it.

  Charles Yu

  Want, Littles, Enjoy

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.233, Vintage

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• At some point in your life, this statement will be true: tomorrow you will lose everything forever.

  Charles Yu

  Forever, Tomorrow, Being True

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition): A Novel”, p.206, Knopf

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• This is what you have to ask yourself: Do you want to be good, or just seem good? Do you want to be good to yourself and others? Do you care about other people, always, sometimes, never? Or only when convenient? What kind of person do you want to be?

  Charles Yu

  People, Care, Want

  Charles Yu (2012). “Sorry Please Thank You: Stories”, p.48, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• For the past several years, I have gone to sleep every night in this same little pocket, the most uneventful piece of time I could find. Same exact thing every night, night after night. Total silence. Absolutely nothing. That's why I chose it. I know for a fact nothing bad can happen to me in here.

  Charles Yu

  Sleep, Past, Night

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.15, Vintage

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• Sometimes when I'm brushing my teeth, I'll look at the mirror and I swear my reflection seems kind of disappointed. I realized a couple of years ago that not only am I not super-skilled at anything, I'm not even particularly good at being myself.

  Charles Yu

  Couple, Reflection, Mirrors

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.10, Vintage

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• I was headed for an entire life spent alone, pitying myself for not being more, ignoring all those people who actually ask me to be more, because they see it in me.

  Charles Yu

  People, Ask Me, Asks

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition): A Novel”, p.131, Knopf

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• Worry was my mother's mechanic, her mechanism for engaging with the machinery of living. Worry was an anchor for her, a hook, something to clutch on to in the world. Worry was a box to live inside of, worry a mechanism for evading the present, for re-creating the past, for dealing with the future.

  Charles Yu

  Mother, Past, Anchors

  FaceBook post by Charles Yu from May 11, 2014

  5 Copy quote

• nostalgia, underlying cosmological explanation for Weak but detectable interaction between two neighboring universes that are otherwise not causally connected. Manifests itself in humans as a feeling of missing a place one has never been, a place very much like one’s home universe, or as a longing for versions of one’s self that one will never, and can never know.

  Charles Yu

  Home, Self, Two

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.47, Vintage

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• I don't miss him anymore. Most of the time, anyway. I want to. I wish I could but unfortunately, it's true: time does heal. It will do so whether you like it or not, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. If you're not careful, time will take away everything that ever hurt you, everything you have lost, and replace it with knowledge. Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience... It will force you to move on and you will not have a choice in the matter.

  Charles Yu

  Hurt, Pain, Moving

  FaceBook post by Charles Yu from Dec 06, 2014

  8 Copy quote

• Desire is suffering. A simple equation, and a nice catchphrase. But flipped around, it is more troubling: suffering is desire.

  Charles Yu

  Nice, Simple, Suffering

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• This, then, is my choice: I can allow the events of my life to happen to me. Or I can take those very same actions and make them my own. I can live in my own present, risk failure, be assured of failure.

  Charles Yu

  Choices, Risk, Events

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Enhanced Edition): A Novel”, p.212, Knopf

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• It's like all technology: either not powerful enough or too powerful. It will never do exactly what you want it to do.

  Charles Yu

  Powerful, Technology, Want

  Charles Yu (2012). “Sorry Please Thank You: Stories”, p.42, Vintage

  15 Copy quote

• Life is, to some extent, an extended dialogue with your future self about how exactly you are going to let yourself down over the coming years.

  Charles Yu

  Self, Years, Life Is

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.111, Vintage

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• You can just sit in here, impervious and invisible. So invisible you might even forget yourself.

  Charles Yu

  Might, Forget, Invisible

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.25, Vintage

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• Whatever the reason, first place was always Solo, always, always, always, and second place was usually Chewbacca, because if you weren't the one saving the galaxy, you might as well be eight feet tall and covered with hair.

  Charles Yu

  Eight, Hair, Feet

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.30, Vintage

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• Failure is easy to measure. Failure is an event.Harder to measure is insignificance. A nonevent. Insignificance creeps, it dawns, it gives you hope, then delusion, then one day, when you’re not looking, it’s there, at your front door, on your desk, in the mirror, or not, not any of that, it’s the lack of all that. One day, when you are looking, it’s not looking, no one is. You lie in your bed and realize that if you don’t get out of bed and into the world today, it is very likely no one will even notice.

  Charles Yu

  Lying, Mirrors, Doors

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• All anyone is to anyone is a series of days.

  Charles Yu

  Series

  Charles Yu (2012). “Sorry Please Thank You: Stories”, p.121, Vintage

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• Maybe we spend most of our decades being someone else, avoiding ourselves, maybe a man is only himself, his true self, for a few days in his entire life.

  Charles Yu

  Men, Self, Avoiding

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.176, Vintage

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• There is a sense in which I am pretty sure this makes no sense. I don't know where this is going. I don't know how it ends.

  Charles Yu

  Ends, I Am Pretty, Know How

  Charles Yu (2010). “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe: A Novel”, p.112, Vintage

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