Beautiful world where are you quotes
Were they aware, in the intensity of their embrace, of something slightly ridiculous about this tableau . . . Or were they in this moment unaware, or something more than unaware—were they somehow invulnerable to, untouched by, vulgarity and ugliness, glancing for a moment into something deeper, something concealed beneath the surface of life, not unreality but a hidden reality: the presence at all times, in all places, of a beautiful world?
I did not expect to love Sally Rooney’s
Beautiful World, Where Are You
. I found
Conversations with Friends
so boring I didn’t finish it; I was won over by
Normal People
, but only after watching the adaptation, which taught me to “hear” the book in a gentle Irish lilt. This mixed experience made me curious but hesitant about
Beautiful World, Where Are You
. I’m really glad now that I gave in to my curiosity rather than letting my annoyance at the ubiquity of the novel’s coverage put me off it. It is an odd novel: self-conscious and artificial and yet at the same time palpably earnest, touching, and, yes, at times beautiful. I don’t know if it is a great or even an entirely successful novel, o
Beautiful World, Where Are You Quotes
“And we hate people for making mistakes so much more than we love them for doing good that the easiest way to live is to do nothing, say nothing, and love no one.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You
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“When I try to picture for myself what a happy life might look like, the picture hasn't changed very much since I was a child - a house with flowers and trees around it, and a river nearby, and a room full of books, and someone there to love me, that's all. Just to make a home there, and to care for my parents when they grow older. Never to move, never to board a plane again, just to live quietly and then be buried in the earth.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You
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“I was tired, it was late, I was sitting half-asleep in the back of a taxi, remembering strangely that wherever I go, you are with me, and so is he, and that as long as you both live the world will be beautiful to me.”
― Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You
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“What if the meaning of life on earth is not eternal progress toward some unspecified goal—the
Favorite Passage – Sally Rooney’s “Beautiful World, Where are You?” (2020)
I’ve been thinking about the later parts of your message for a few days now – about whether, as you say, ‘the failure is general.’ I know we agree that civilization is presently in its decadent declining phase, and that lurid ugliness is the predominant visual feature of modern life. Cars are ugly, buildings are ugly, mass-produced disposable consumer goods are unspeakably ugly. The air we breathe is toxic, the water we drink is full of micro plastics, and our food is contaminated by cancerous Teflon chemicals. Our quality of life is in decline, and along with it, the quality of aesthetic experience available to us. The contemporary novel is (with very few exceptions) irrelevant; mainstream cinema is family-friendly nightmare porn funded by car companies and the US Department of Defense; and visual art is primarily a commodity market for oligarchs. It is hard in these circumstances not to feel that modern living compares poorly with the old ways of life, which have come to represent something more substantial, more connected to the essence of the human condition. This
The first book written by Sally Rooney that I read was Conversations with Friends, back in 2019. I remember liking it because it was something “different”. Different in the way that it was written — a lot of conversations that didn’t have quotation marks. I also saw the main characters as relatable in that they seemed like people I’d actually meet in real life.
I also read Normal People which I also liked, but not to the level at which I liked Conversations with Friends. I do have a friend who enjoyed Normal People more, only because she didn’t like the female lead character in Conversations. To each her own, I guess.
When I heard that Sally Rooney was coming out with a new book, I was excited and I looked forward to reading it, but after having done so, I didn’t really like it. I felt like it was a bit dragging (it could’ve ended way earlier than it did) and I got a bit irritated at the characters — probably because I couldn’t relate to them?
The biggest realization that I got from the book is that everyone is flawed and everyone has his or her own way of coping with something. Sometimes, we might not like the way someone reacts to something, but we can’t force what our “nor