We knew - but didn't want to know - what was going to happen, the sky descending upon our heads like the shadow of a falling piano in a cartoon.
Aleksandar HemonRead
I wanted us to share the sense that the number of wrong moves far exceeds the number of good moves, to share the frightening instability of the correct decision, to bond in being confounded.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the complexity and uncertainty of decision-making, highlighting that wrong choices are more common than right ones.
Aleksandar Hemon's quote suggests that in life, we often face a vast number of wrong decisions compared to the rare moments of making the right choice. It emphasizes the shared struggle of navigating through confusing choices, and how this turmoil can foster a bond between individuals who experience similar challenges in decision-making. The notion of being confounded reflects the inherent instability and anxiety in striving for correctness amidst uncertainty.
Themes
DecisionWrong MovesUncertaintyComplexityBonding
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the challenges of making important life choices, this quote can illustrate the shared experiences of decision-making struggles.
More from Aleksandar Hemon
All quotes →I have two homes, like someone who leaves their hometown and/or parents and then establishes a life elsewhere. They might say that they're going home when they return to see old friends or parents, but then they go home as well when they go to where they live now. Sarajevo is home, Chicago is home.
Aleksandar HemonRead
I do have a sense of displacement as constant instability — the uninterrupted existence of everything that I love and care about is not guaranteed at all. I wait for catastrophes.
Aleksandar HemonRead
Home is where somebody notices when you are no longer there.
Aleksandar HemonRead
I loved you because there was no other place for me to go. We were married because we did not know what else to do with each other. You never knew me, nothing about me, what died inside me, what lived invisibly.
Aleksandar HemonRead
All the lives I could live, all the people I will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is all that the world is.
Aleksandar HemonRead
Similar quotes
Between two groups of people who want to make inconsistent kinds of worlds, I see no remedy but force.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.Read
The whole world is not worth one soul.
Saint Francis De SalesRead
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
Khalil GibranRead
For the world is an ever-elusive and ever-disappointing mirage only from the standpoint of someone standing aside from it—as if it were quite other than himself—and then trying to grasp it. But a third response is possible. Not withdrawal, not stewardship on the hypothesis of a future reward, but the fullest collaboration with the world as a harmonious system of contained conflicts—based on the realization that the only real "I" is the whole endless process.
Alan WattsRead
A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian. And you devalue the citizenship of every Canadian in this place and in this country when you break down and make it conditional for anyone.
Justin TrudeauRead
Thus in this oneness Jesus Christ is the Mediator, the Reconciler, between God and man. Thus He comes forward to MAN on behalf of GOD calling for and awakening faith, love and hope, and to GOD on behalf of MAN, representing man, making satisfaction and interceding. Thus He attests and guarantees to God's free GRACE and at the same time attests and guarantees to God man's free GRATITUDE.
Karl BarthRead