Versions Quotes

“Tonight the Internet seemed filled with versions of me, like a fun house filled with mirrors. Some of them made me look prettier, and some of them made me look uglier, and some of them chopped me right in half, but none of them were right.”
― Leila Sales, This Song Will Save Your Life

“We keep becoming better & better versions of ourselves without end, though there may be some glitches, we recover & go on.”
― Jay Woodman

“I've come to believe that at different times our lives we are drawn to certain people for various reasons, mainly because that version of ourselves is connected to that version of them at that particular time. If you stick at it, work at it, you can grow in different directions together. Sometimes you get pulled apart, but I believe there is the right person, the one, for all the different versions of yourself. Gabriel and I lived in the now. Gerry and I aimed for forever. We got a fraction of forever. And an enjoyable now and a fraction of forever is always better than doing nothing.”
― Cecelia Ahern, Postscript

“And as Sean climbs into bed and closes his eyes, Mother comes, riding astride a lion the size of a house, blowing a clarion from a horn made out of a hollowed-out elephant's tusk. Her eyes have a faint crimson glow from the lasers that are mounted behind her irises, ready to fire at will.

'I touched a prince's chest today and made his heart stop,' she says. 'I'll do it again if I have to: they'll see what happens if anyone gets in my way. Good night, my son. Remember that I will always keep you safe; that I am always everywhere and always here.'

'Good night, Mom,' Sean says, and falls asleep.

And Mother recedes, wise and beautiful and strong, a genius and a hero, a punisher of thieves and a slayer of wicked men, to watch over her son in all her different versions.”
― Dexter Palmer, Version Control

“Different people think of different versions of 'God' - a loving father or a fearful punishing ghoul. These are incompatible, irreconcilable - and you thought having 'one world religion' or 'one God' would unite humanity?”
― Christina Engela, Loderunner

“The constant clamor of the booths and barkers served as an exhausting reminder that he had to choose a fate, and that no matter which fate he chose he could be certain that it would not be the best, that in other timelines rendered inaccessible with each spent coin, other versions of himself would be having more fun, or winning golden ribbons, or becoming taller. The thought was unbearable.”
― Dexter Palmer, The Dream of Perpetual Motion

“On one level, the poems after Verlaine in this new book are a selfish project. I wanted to try on a voice with which, despite sharing some stylistic and tonal sympathies, I seemed to have little in common. It served as a psychodramatic exercise, a walk in somebody else’s shoes. Writing each new poem while drawing on the raw material of Verlaine in translation has led me, in the always dramatised context of the individual poem, to think and say things I’d likely never have dreamed of otherwise. But just as importantly, I hope these poems paint a fresh portrait of Paul Verlaine, however partial and sketchy, that reveals him to be a more surprising, hard-thinking, and even revivifying poet than expected. Beyond his skilled conjuring of delicate and atmospheric allusiveness, at its best, his is also poetry of punchy musicality, philosophical edge, and candidness – both intellectual and emotional – which allows for genuine beauty, sensuality, and sadness.”
― Ben Wilkinson, Same Difference

“Can you hear my words or just your version of them?”
― Hadinet Tekie

“On one level, the poems after Verlaine in this collection are a selfish project. I wanted to try on a
voice with which, despite sharing some stylistic and tonal sympathies, I seemed to have little in common. It served as a psychodramatic exercise, a walk in somebody else’s shoes. Writing each new poem while drawing on the raw material of Verlaine in translation has led me, in the always dramatised context of the individual poem, to think and say things I’d likely never have dreamed of otherwise. But just as importantly, I hope these poems paint a fresh portrait of Paul Verlaine, however partial and sketchy, that reveals him to be a more surprising, hard-thinking, and even revivifying poet than expected. Beyond his skilled conjuring of delicate and atmospheric allusiveness, at its best, his is also poetry of punchy musicality,
philosophical edge, and candidness – both intellectual and emotional – which allows for genuine beauty, sensuality, and sadness.”
― Ben Wilkinson, Same Difference

“I will not settle for a diluted version of love.”
― Hadinet Tekie

“Today, at different times, I ran into two friends who'd had a fight. Each one told me his version of why they'd fought. Each one told me the truth. Each one gave me his reasons. They were both right. They were both absolutely right. It's not that one of them saw it one way and the other another way, or that one saw one side of what happened and the other a different side. No: each one saw things exactly as they'd happened, each one saw them according to the same criterion, but each one saw something different, and so each one was right.

I was baffled by this dual existence of truth.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet