Hanya Yanagihara Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. He experienced the singular pleasure of watching people he loved fall in love with other people he loved. A Little Life

2. But then again, he would think, what about his life- and about Jude's life, too- wasn't it a miracle? He should have stayed in Wyoming, he should have been a ranch hand himself. Jude should have wound up - where? In prison, or in a hospital, or dead, or worse. But they hadn't. Wasn't it a miracle that someone who was basically unexceptional could life a life in which he made millions pretending to be other people, that in that life that person would fly from city to city, would spend his days having his every need fulfilled, working in which he was treated like the potentate of a small, corrupt country? Wasn't it a miracle to be adopted at thirty, to find people who loved you so much that they wanted to call you their own? Wasn't it a miracle to have survived the unsurvivable?Wasn't friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely? Wasn't this house, this beauty, this comfort, this life a miracle? A Little Life

3. He was old enough now to know that within every relationship was something unfulfilled and disappointing, something that had to be sought elsewhere. A Little Life

4. Here, time was his, and space was his, and every door could be shut, every window locked. He would stand before the tiny hallway closet—an alcove, really, over which they had strung a length of burlap—and admire the stores within it. A Little Life

5. Only people who have a plausible hope of being immortalized in history are so about how they might get immortalized," she said. "The rest of us are too busy trying to get through the day. To Paradise

6. To me, the thing about friendship that makes it so singular is that it’s a relationship that’s central to our identity in that it doesn’t necessarily benefit us in any tangible way. It’s a relationship we don’t have to pursue – if we decide to stop being friends one day, nothing will happen, no one’s there to legislate or adjudicate it. It’s two people who every day choose to keep it going, and in that way it’s very powerful because it’s one you choose to work on, and you choose to without any agreement; it’s an unspoken bond.

7. When he had promised himself that he wouldn't try to repair Jude, he had forgotten that to solve someone is to want to repair them: to diagnose a problem and then not try to fix that problem seemed not only neglectful but immoral. A Little Life

8. You have to talk about these things while they're fresh. Or you'll never talk about them. Because it's going to get harder and harder the longer you wait, and it's going to fester inside you, and you're always going to think you're to blame. You'll be wrong, of course, but you'll always think it. A Little Life

9. You spent so much time explaining yourself, your work to others - what it meant, what you were trying to accomplish, why you were trying to accomplish it, why you had to chosen the colors and subject matter and materials and application and technique that you had - that it was a relief to simply be with another person to whom you didn't have to explain anything. A Little Life

10. You’re dreaming of miracles, Willem, Idriss would say if he knew what he was thinking, and he knew he was. But then again, he would think, what about his life—and about Jude’s life, too—wasn’t it a miracle? He should have stayed in Wyoming, he should have been a ranch hand himself. Jude should have wound up—where? In prison, or in a hospital, or dead, or worse. But they hadn’t. Wasn’t it a miracle that someone who was basically unexceptional could live a life in which he made millions pretending to be other people, that in that life that person would fly from city to city, would spend his days having his every need fulfilled, working in artificial contexts in which he was treated like the potentate of a small, corrupt country? Wasn’t it a miracle to be adopted at thirty, to find people who loved you so much that they wanted to call you their own? Wasn’t it a miracle to have survived the unsurvivable? Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely? Wasn’t this house, this beauty, this comfort, this life a miracle? And so who could blame him for hoping for one more, for hoping that despite knowing better, that despite biology, and time, and history, that they would be the exception, that what happened to other people with Jude’s sort of injury wouldn’t happen to him, that even with all that Jude had overcome, he might overcome just one more thing?