Charles Yu

Chronological living is a kind of lie. That’s why I don’t do it anymore. Existence doesn’t have more meaning in one direction than it does in any other. Completing the days of your life in strict calendar order can feel forced. Arbitrary. Especially after you’ve seen what I’ve seen.
Most people I know live their lives moving in a constant forward direction, the whole time looking backward.

But no one grows up wanting to be the time machine repair guy.
No one says, Hey, I want to be the guy who fixes stuff.

attachment coefficient
Inhabitants of Universe 31 are separated into two categories, protagonists and back office.
Protagonists may choose from any available genre. Currently, there are openings in steampunk.
Back office support workers must choose between retcon, accounting, human resources, time machine repair, or janitorial.
In order to qualify as a protagonist, a human must be able to demonstrate an attachment coefficient of at least 0.75. A coefficient of 1.00 or above is required in order to be a hero.
Factors used in calculating the coefficient include
ability to believe
fervency of that belief
humility
willingness to look stupid
willingness to have heart broken
willingness to see U31 as nonboring or, better yet, to see it as interesting, and maybe even important, and despite its deeply defective nature possibly even worth saving
Any inhabitant with a negative attachment coefficient (in which case it is referred to as a coefficient of ironic detachment) will be placed on probation pending review of the individual’s suitability for continued inclusion within the U31 diegetic space.

The books in his study, with their rigid cloth spines and their impenetrable titles, they seemed daunting and impossible back then, but now, thinking back, I can see how the books were all related, I can see how they were, collectively, a bibliography of a career in striving, in aiming, in seeking to understand the world.

A typical customer gets into a machine that can literally take her whenever she’d like to go. Do you want to know what the first stop usually is? Take a guess. Don’t guess. You already know: the unhappiest day of her life.

Time is a machine: it will convert your pain into experience.

could go through life never actually being where you are.

Everyone’s always questioning themselves. Am I doing this right, is this how I’m supposed to look? Am I good enough to be a good guy, am I bad enough to be a bad guy?

I don’t know what I would do without you. I don’t know what I will do without you. I learned about the future tense, how anxiety is encoded into our sentences, our conditionals, our thoughts, how worry is encoded into language itself, into grammar.

I remember this day, I know what happens, and yet I still feel like I don’t know what will happen.