Iain Reid Quotes

We can't do whatever we want. There are ways we have to act. There are things we have to say.

But we can think whatever we want.

That's the thing. Part of everything will always be forgettable. No matter how good or remarkable it is. It literally has to be. To be.

It's amazing that relationships can form and last under the constraints of never fully knowing. Never knowing for sure what the other person is thinking. Never knowing for sure who a person is.

I think there's a perception that fear and terror and dread are fleeting. That they hit hard and fast when they do, but they don't last. It's not true. They don't fade unless they're replaced by some other feeling. Deep fear will stay and spread if it can. You can't outrun or outsmart or subdue it. Untreated, it will only fester. Fear is a rash.

Is intelligence always good? I wonder. What if intelligence is wasted? What if intelligence leads to more loneliness rather than to fulfillment? What if instead of productivity and clarity, it generates pain, isolation, and regret?

Why bother taking notice of everything going on around you, filling up your mind with irrelevant details and excess information? What's going to happen will happen regardless. Awareness is beside the point.

For years, my life has been flat. I'm not sure how else to describe it. I've never admitted it before. I'm not depressed, I don't think. That's not what I'm saying. Just flat, listless. So much has felt accidental, unnecessary, arbitrary. It's been lacking a dimension. Something seems to be missing.

Walking is nonverbal communication. Like I can tell if [she's] mad by her footsteps. Walking isn't as overt as other signals, like the way someone smells, their voice, their laugh, their facial expressions. Steps can be frivolous, but they're often distinct from person to person. Familiarity grows over time, slowly, inadvertently. I never tried to get to know her walk deliberately. This stuff happens unwittingly... Living with someone can't be simulated or rehearsed. It has to be experienced, in real time. There is no substitute for shared involvement, for creating actual memories. Like, I know how [she] blows her nose. I've never thought about it until now, but I do. I know the cadence, the rhythm. She does it in the same tempo every time. These observations - her footsteps, how she blows her nose - they're like little secrets.

Being alone isn't the worst thing. It's okay to be lonely. I can deal with loneliness. We can't have everything. I can't have everything.

The more we tell ourselves that we should always be happy, that happiness in an end in itself, the worse it gets.

Just tell your story. Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. So just keep going.

That we don't know all the answers, that we can't explain it all, like space. Maybe we're not supposed to know all the answers. Questions are good. They're better than answers. If you want to know more about life, how we work, how we progress, it's questions that are important. That's what pushes and stretches our intellect. I think questions make us feel less lonely and more connected. It's not always about knowing. I appreciate not knowing. Not knowing is human. That's how it should be, like space. It's unsolvable, and it's dark,' I say, 'but not entirely.

Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited.

When we choose to bring the end closer, we create a new beginning

Every story is made up. Even the real ones.

Maybe it's impossible. Maybe even in the longest, closest, most successful marriages, the one partner doesn't always know what the other is thinking. We're never inside someone else's head. We can never really know someone else's thoughts. And it's thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked.

Maybe the end was written right from the beginning."
(P. 1)

We're never inside someone else's head. We can never really know someone else's thoughts. And it's thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked. I

When you become aware of your heart, you want it to stop beating. You need a break from the constant rhythm, a rest.

/You've been presented with a rare opportunity that,at the moment,remains unresolved. But why is the unknown a burden? It doesn't have to be. It can just as easily be the opposite - a kind of awakening to feel something. I don't just mean the Installation. Even before that. This is a chance to be taken out of your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly routine, regardless of the final outcome. Again . . . /This is for both of you. It's a chance to wake up. How many people live day to day in a kind of haze, moving from one thing to the next without ever feeling anything? Being busy without ever being absorbed or excited or renewed? Most people don't ever think about the full range of achievable existence; they just don't./

My eyes have adjusted to the darkness. You get used to the dark after awhile. Not the quiet.

I've expected you to understand how I'm feeling, and it just doesn't happen. It's so discouraging, draining. It's like as long as we're here, moving from day to day, your convinced that I'm happy. Honestly, I rarely feel happy. I don't want to have to tell you everything. I shouldn't have to. Not if you're paying attention, even just a bit, considering me in a way that's not just superficial. I want my own identity separate from being your wife. It's just how it should be.

He's whispering again. I'm finding it hard to hear, and we're standing close together.
What do you want to ask?
'If Hen/ was the same as she is now, in every way, but was a bit less physically attractive in one significant way, do you think you would have married her?'
I'm caught off guard by the question, but I don't want to show that I am, so I don't hesitate with my answer.
Of course, I say. I love Hen. Hen's my wife. She'll be with me forever. I've always loved he. I'll always love her.
' I know that. I know. I don't doubt you love her very much. That's not really what I'm asking, though. Are you sure you would have married her? Committed to her forever? Think about it. Does her appearance not mean anything to you? Is that what you're saying? That what she looks like is irrelevant?'
It's such a blonde question. It seems out of line with everything else we talked about. I feel a trickle in sweat slide down my spine.
I'm saying, to me, no matter what, she would still be Hen.
'Would she, though? Would she still be the Hen you fell in love with? What about this: What if she looked exactly as she does right now, but she was a little less intelligent? Would she still be Hen?'
That's just stupid. It's a stupid question. Hen is Hen.

You also know things are real when they can be lost.

Both fictions and memories are recalled and retold. They're both forms of stories. Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other.

I can remember we were happy, I say. Happy to have our own house.
'Can you recall anything specific, like a detail, or is it more a feeling you remember?'
Anybody can remember details if you ask them to, I say, but it doesn't mean it actually happened that way.
I wait for him to make eye contact, which he does.
'You have a point, Junior,' he says.' You're right.

We all know writing is a reclusive, lonely endeavour. It just is. But nobody writes alone.

Isn't that why we commit to another? It's not for sex. If it were for sex, we wouldn't marry one person. We'd just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know, but the more I think about it, the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone.

Experience trumps age,' he said. 'We have to find ways to experience because that's how we learn, that's how we know.

Sometimes a thought is closer to truth, to reality, than an action. You can say anything, you can do anything, but you can't fake a thought.

School is the place we all have to go. There is potential. School is about the future. Looking forward to something, progression, growing, maturing. It's supposed to be safe here, but is has become the opposite. It feels like a prison.

Habitual, comfortable activity is the worst kind of prison, because the bars are concealed. You can never learn anything that way.

People talk about the ability to endure. To endure anything and everything, to keep going, to be strong. But you can do that only if you're not alone. That's always the infrastructure life's built on. A closeness with others. Alone it all becomes a struggle of mere endurance.

You can't really understand a relationship until you live it, unless you're in it.

Why do people stay together"? They stay together because it's expected, because it's what they know. They try to make it work, to endure it, and end up living under some kind of spiritual anesthetic. They go on, but they are numb. There is nothing worse than to live your life this way. Detached, but abiding. It's immoral.

On the nights I can't sleep, like that one, like so many recently, I wish I could just turn my mind off like a lamp.

I think a lot of what we learn about others isn't what they tell us. It's what we observe. People can tell us anything they want.

Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other. But reality
happens only once.

You can hold beliefs and not always believe in them.