The Comfort Book by Matt Haig

 I recently read this book: 


I didn't love it quite as much as The Book of Delights by Ross Gay, which is still tops for me, but I found a lot of really great wisdom in here. I was reminded that I had it when I saw a picture of it in a post by Klara at The Next 150000 Days, and I put it into my short TBR pile. 

Here are some of my favorite gems: 

"We are not what we experience. 

If we stand in a hurricane, it doesn't matter how violent or terrifying the hurricane is, we always know that the hurricane is not us. The weather outside and inside us is never permanent. People talk about dark clouds over them. But we are never the clouds; we are the sky. We just contain them. The clouds are just the present view. The sky stays the sky."  - pg 184

"I used to worry about fitting in until I realized the reason I didn't fit in was because I didn't want to."  - pg 150

"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." - Heraclitus (pg 90, someone else's quote but I'd never heard it before and it resonated)

"You don't need to know the future to be hopeful. You just need to embrace the concept of possibility. To accept that the unknowability of the future is the key, and that there are versions of that future that are brighter and fairer than this one. The future is open." - pg 77

From a piece on "Possibility," quote from existential philosopher Rollo May: 

"Joy is the experience of possibility that the consciousness of one's freedom as one confronts one's destiny. In this sense despair . . . can lead to joy. After despair, the one thing left is possibility."     
 - pg 240

"It is easier to learn to be soaked and happy than to learn how to stop the rain." - pg 128


Pretty relevant stuff, no? 


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2 comments:

  1. Oh wow, they all resonate! And yes, completely relevant to our situations.

    I really like this one too - "I used to worry about fitting in until I realized the reason I didn't fit in was because I didn't want to." I have to think about that one some more.

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  2. This has been in my TBR pile for quite a while now! (after reading "The Midnight Library") I follow him on Instagram and while he's not on there quite as much as he used to be, I appreciate his posts. :)

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