Best 25 quotes of Iain Reid on MyQuotes

Iain Reid

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    Iain Reid

    A memory is its own thing each time it's recalled. It's not absolute. Stories based on actual events often share more with fiction than fact. Both fictions and memories are recalled and retold. They're both forms of stories. Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other. But reality happens only once.

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    Iain Reid

    Depression is a serious illness. It’s physically painful, debilitating. And you can’t just decide to get over it in the same way you can’t just decide to get over cancer. Sadness is a normal human condition, no different from happiness. You wouldn’t think of happiness as an illness. Sadness and happiness need each other. To exist, each relies on the other.

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    Iain Reid

    Every story is made up. Even the real ones.

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    Iain Reid

    Good news for someone often means bad news for someone else

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    Iain Reid

    He’s whispering again. I’m finding it hard to hear, and we’re standing close together. What do you want to ask? ‘If Hen/ was the same as she is now, in every way, but was a bit less physically attractive in one significant way, do you think you would have married her?’ I’m caught off guard by the question, but I don’t want to show that I am, so I don’t hesitate with my answer. Of course, I say. I love Hen. Hen’s my wife. She’ll be with me forever. I’ve always loved he. I’ll always love her. ‘ I know that. I know. I don’t doubt you love her very much. That’s not really what I’m asking, though. Are you sure you would have married her? Committed to her forever? Think about it. Does her appearance not mean anything to you? Is that what you’re saying? That what she looks like is irrelevant?’ It’s such a blonde question. It seems out of line with everything else we talked about. I feel a trickle in sweat slide down my spine. I’m saying, to me, no matter what, she would still be Hen. ‘Would she, though? Would she still be the Hen you fell in love with? What about this: What if she looked exactly as she does right now, but she was a little less intelligent? Would she still be Hen?’ That’s just stupid. It’s a stupid question. Hen is Hen.

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    Iain Reid

    I can remember we were happy, I say. Happy to have our own house. ‘Can you recall anything specific, like a detail, or is it more a feeling you remember?’ Anybody can remember details if you ask them to, I say, but it doesn’t mean it actually happened that way. I wait for him to make eye contact, which he does. ‘You have a point, Junior,’ he says.’ You’re right.

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    Iain Reid

    I should have told someone. But I didn’t. I didn’t think it was anything significant until it was.

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    Iain Reid

    Isn’t that why we commit to another? It’s not for sex. If it were for sex, we wouldn’t marry one person. We’d just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know, but the more I think about it, the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone.

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    Iain Reid

    I think a lot of what we learn about others isn’t what they tell us. It’s what we observe. People can tell us anything they want.

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    Iain Reid

    I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn't that why we commit to another? It's not for sex. if it were for sex, we wouldn't marry one person. We'd just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know, but the more I think about it, the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone. I want someone to know me, really know me, almost like that person could get into my head. What would that feel like? To have access, to know what it's like in someone else's head. To rely on someone else, have him rely on you. That's not a biological connection like the one between parents and children. This kind of relationship would be chosen. It would be something cooler, harder to achieve than one built on biology and shared genetics.

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    Iain Reid

    I think what I want is for someone to know me. Really know me. Know me better than anyone else and maybe even me. Isn’t that why we commit to another? It’s not for sex. If it were for sex, we wouldn’t marry one person. We’d just keep finding new partners. We commit for many reasons, I know, but the more I think about it, the more I think long-term relationships are for getting to know someone. I want someone to know me, really know me, almost like that person could get into my head. What would that feel like? To have access, to know what it’s like in someone else’s head. To rely on someone else, have him rely on you. That’s not a biological connection like the one between parents and children. This kind of relationship would be chosen. It would be something cooler, harder to achieve than one built on biology and shared genetics. I think that’s it. Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.

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    Iain Reid

    It’s amazing that relationships can form and last under the constraints of never fully knowing. Never knowing for sure what the other person is thinking. Never knowing for sure who a person is.

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    Iain Reid

    I’ve become more aware of myself. Because of the situation. Now that I’m no I’m leaving, I see things differently. I’ve been aware of little things that I would have missed before. ‘Like what?’ Like seeing the sun shine off the roof of our old barn. I saw that this morning and stood there, looking at it. I found it moving. It was beautiful - it really was. I don’t usually think about if a landscape is beautiful or not, but I couldn’t control this feeling. I saw it and recognized that it was beautiful. But you know what? It made me sad. ‘Sad?’ I can hear him typing. He’s trying to do it quietly, but I can hear. ‘Why?’ I don’t know. I have no idea. ‘Because beauty is fleeting, maybe?’ No, I say. It’s the opposite. Beauty isn’t fleeting. Beauty is eternal. But . . . I’m not. I’m fleeting. That’s more the point. He’s typing stops abruptly. ‘ that’s quite profound. You do seem more self-aware and introspective them when I first arrived. It makes me think of Baudelaire: ‘ I can barely conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy’.

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    Iain Reid

    Maybe it's impossible. Maybe even in the longest, closest, most successful marriages, the one partner doesn't always know what the other is thinking. We're never inside someone else's head. We can never really know someone else's thoughts. And it's thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked.

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    Iain Reid

    Maybe that’s how we know when a relationship is real. When someone else previously unconnected to us knows us in a way we never thought or believed possible.

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    Iain Reid

    On the nights I can’t sleep, like that one, like so many recently, I wish I could just turn my mind off like a lamp.

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    Iain Reid

    Pretty much all memory is fiction and heavily edited. [...] A memory is its own thing each time it's recalled. It's not absolute. Stories based on actual events often share more with fiction than fact. Both fictions and memories are recalled and retold. They're both forms of stories. Stories are the way we learn. Stories are how we understand each other. But reality happens only once. [...] Every story is made up. Even the real ones. [...] That's the thing. Part of everything will always be forgettable. No matter how good or remarkable it is. It literally has to be. To be.

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    Iain Reid

    School is the place we all have to go. There is potential. School is about the future. Looking forward to something, progression, growing, maturing. It's supposed to be safe here, but is has become the opposite. It feels like a prison.

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    Iain Reid

    That's the thing. Part of everything will always be forgettable. No matter how good or remarkable it is. It literally has to be. To be.

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    Iain Reid

    That we don't know all the answers, that we can't explain it all, like space. Maybe we're not supposed to know all the answers. Questions are good. They're better than answers. If you want to know more about life, how we work, how we progress, it's questions that are important. That's what pushes and stretches our intellect. I think questions make us feel less lonely and more connected. It's not always about knowing. I appreciate not knowing. Not knowing is human. That's how it should be, like space. It's unsolvable, and it's dark,' I say, 'but not entirely.

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    Iain Reid

    We didn’t even talk that day. Not a word. There was no acknowledgement between us, but I felt a connection. I was on the other side of the road. I was alone. I thought I was alone. Until I saw her. She had no idea of her impact. She was oblivious. That was the power she had over me. Even then. Seeing her made me question what I was doing, what I wanted, what I desired, what I could do. Not just in the moment. But what I had been doing that lead me to this point, why I was there, out in the sun, my hands dirty and sore. My whole life, I could not remember anyone’s name. Nothing had made a formative impact on me. But right then I thought that might change. If I knew her name, I would remember it. That’s what she did, even before we’d met - she’d changed things. There she was, preoccupied, bent down, oblivious, washing her hands in a puddle on the side of the road. I knew she was the one. I was meant for her. I saw her, and right then, my life began.

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    Iain Reid

    We never really know someone else's thoughts. And it's thoughts that count. Thought is reality. Actions can be faked.

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    Iain Reid

    When you become aware of your heart, you want it to stop beating. You need a break from the constant rhythm, a rest.

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    Iain Reid

    Why do people stay together?’ she asks a few minutes later. In long term relationships? I ask. ‘In marriages,’ she says. Because they love each other, I say. They’re committed to each other. There’s comfort there, security. ‘No. They stay together because it’s expected, because it’s what they know. They try to make it work, to endure it, and end up living under some kind of spiritual anesthetic. They go on, but they are numb. And the more I think, the more I think there’s nothing worse than to live your life this way. Detached, but abiding. It’s immoral.

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    Iain Reid

    /You’ve been presented with a rare opportunity that,at the moment,remains unresolved. But why is the unknown a burden? It doesn’t have to be. It can just as easily be the opposite - a kind of awakening to feel something. I don’t just mean the Installation. Even before that. This is a chance to be taken out of your daily, weekly, monthly, yearly routine, regardless of the final outcome. Again . . . /This is for both of you. It’s a chance to wake up. How many people live day to day in a kind of haze, moving from one thing to the next without ever feeling anything? Being busy without ever being absorbed or excited or renewed? Most people don’t ever think about the full range of achievable existence; they just don’t./