Lydia Netzer > Quotes

“There are three things that robots cannot do," wrote Maxon. Then beneath that on the page he wrote three dots, indented. Beside the first dot he wrote "Show preference without reason (LOVE)" and then "Doubt rational decisions (REGRET)" and finally "Trust data from a previously unreliable source (FORGIVE).”
― Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine

“When you are sitting on a three-legged stool and you've kicked out all three legs, but you're still sitting upright, must you assume that you're so good, you levitate? Or must you assume that you were sitting on the ground all along?”
― Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine

“This is what it means to die: You do not finish.”
― Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine

“She thought, Ours is one of the epic loves of our generation. Possibly of all time. Who cares if no one sees it, walking by? This story is s a love song. Who cares if history won't remember?”
― Lydia Netzer

“Why do some people fall in love each other and other don't? What is love? Its so, so stupid. Right up until its real. And then its the most important thing in the world, whether you believe in it or not.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“A child playing with its father screams louder, laughs harder, jumps more eagerly, puts more faith in everything.”
― Lydia Netzer

“The tragedy of her father's absence had never actually been an acutely tragic event for her. As she grew up and came to understand the world, he was a part of it. An already dead part. His absence was the landscape of her family. Increasingly, as the years went on, she didn't really know what she was missing, but that didn't stop her from missing it. She fixated on him. She prayed to him. She attempted to research him, found obscure publications of his in scientific journals. The language was so formal, she could barely understand it. But she told herself, This is familiar. This is mine, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh. She thought, There was a feeling he had, when he wrote this, when he was alive. He communicated it to me, even though everyone who reads this article only gets a lot of information about this scientific test subject, and his reaction to all these oils. She dreamed her father was still out there [ . . . though] her belief that her father was still living did not stop her from telling stories about his death.”
― Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine

“This is a love story about astronomy, he thought. Twin souls collide and love each other forever. And no one ever goes crazy. And no one ever dies. And the universe folds back on itself and clicks into place, and the pylons holding up the electrical wires are really trees. And the trees are really gods.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“These experiences were not lodged in Maxon's memory. They were not allowed to stay there.”
― Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine

“Sometimes you just have to keep away from the things that are trying to kill you, even if they're the same thing that gave birth to you. Sometimes those two things are the same, and their name is mother.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“Sleep is a shallow death we practice every night.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“This is the way it was in Yates County. Bald Girls. Wild boys formed from math. Geniuses all around, just waiting to be discovered, or waiting to rot in trailers behind their parents' barns, die penniless, mourned only by the Amish from whom they bought all those eggs.”
― Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine

“Who cares if it's dangerous? Who wants to be the person who doesn't touch two bells together to make a sound, who doesn't hit a baseball with a bat, doesn't grind and orange against a knife. In life, there is only collision to keep us from dissolution, and there is only love to keep us from death. In this bumping into that, there is salvation and sacrament, an end to the endless falling, a wall between us and oblivion.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“Sunny put on eyebrows, eyelashes, makeup, matching pajamas, a silk robe, and then say looking at herself in the vanity mirror in her bathroom. She had experienced moments in her life when she realized that she was actually alive and living in the world, instead of watching a movie starring herself, or narrating a book with herself as the main character. This was not one of those moments. She felt like she was drifting one centimeter above her physical self, a spirit at odds with its mechanical counterpart. She stood up carefully. Everything looked just right.”
― Lydia Netzer, Shine Shine Shine

“It’s more like every electron in every atom in the universe paused, breathed in deeply, assessed the situation, and then reversed its course, spinning backward, or the other way, which was the right way all along. And afterward, the universe was exactly the same, but infinitely more right.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“As if it would slide off their brains at an angle, leaving a scuff mark.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“Maybe some people don't feel scared when they think about comets and supernovas. Maybe they think it is wonderful.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“A death happened at 3:12 in the morning. A private death between the mother and herself, before she could finish her one last dream. This is what it means to die: You do not finish.”
― Lydia Netzer- Shine Shine Shine

“Do we know her, Mother?" said George.
"What? No, of course we don't."
"Because when I see her," he went on, as if she hadn't answered no, "I don't miss anyone. I just feel happy that she's near.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“I love you," said George.
"I love you, too," said Irene.
"I'm glad you said that," said George. "I wasn't sure you would."
"Yes, it's been five whole days since we met. What a holdout I am. You've been through such endless torments," she teased.
"I have," said George. "I thought I would never find you.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“They were probably fifty feet away from each other. How far is fifty feet? To the top of the tallest tree? From one lip of a volcano to the other? As far as a man can go in ten seconds, striding briskly? As far as a man can go in five seconds, falling over himself in enthusiasm?”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“There is no reason to believe that stars and planets or their movement could have any influence whatsoever on the lives of human beings or the countries of the earth. Neither is there any empirical evidence to show that true love is anything but a construct created by humans to solidify a family unit based on monogamy and a strong, diverse lineage for the species. No evidence of any true god. And yet we watch the stars, we fall in love, we pray. Therefore scholars of astrology, love, and religion have been forced to accept that something can be real, even if it is not true.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“I will never forget the asymmetry of your eyes. it is transformative symmetry. it is the best symmetry. It is the symmetry that is beauty.”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky

“His motto was Scientia vincere tenebras, or “Conquering the darkness through science,”
― Lydia Netzer, How to Tell Toledo from the Night Sky