Cecily: Jonathan loves churches. If only we could have a non-denominational wedding in a Catholic cathedral. Or a mosque.
Alexander: Perhaps a nice, non-denominational meadow? I’m getting married in a whiskey library.
psychology
Two friends, on marriage on a cliff.
Alexander: Isn’t there something so much more romantic about getting hitched in a setting devoid of human touch — a place not shaped by anyone’s ideas and ideologies but your own? When you decide to let nature be your cathedral, your love becomes the architect.
Cecily: No! I want our relationship to be strong enough to blossom in reality — a reality shaped by previous architects and heavy expectations and other people’s disdain.
Two friends, on hearts.
Cecily: You are wonderfully intelligent and kind and generous and wicked.
Arnaud: Thank you. That warms my cold heart.
Cecily: Your heart is not cold. You are simply delusional.
Arnaud, on pregnancy.
Arnaud: This afternoon, I will meet the girl in Bordeaux for whom my love is unrequited. She just told me that she is pregnant once again. I will binge-drink to celebrate it.
Cecily, on work culture.
Cecily: In Paris, there is no such concept as “watercooler conversation”. It’s called a communal cigarette break. And it can happen up to thirty times a day. Note to self: spend salary on cigarettes, ergo, increase end of year bonus. Je fume, donc je suis.
Maurice, on mental health.
Maurice: In 2003, they put me in a mental hospital and diagnosed me with bipolar. But I wouldn’t take their fucking meds. I’m proud to be bipolar!
Alexander, the Pacific Northwestern absurdist.
Alexander: Once I came to accept the meaningless nature of existence, it was much easier to take pleasure in simple things. Now I’m content to see everything as my inside joke and watch the world burn from the comfort of the Pacific Northwestern Void that is Portland.
Cecily, on leaving.
Cecily: When I left Sydney, I was escaping an imagined hardship.
Cecily, on writing.
Cecily: I want to write postcards, not extended literature!
Two friends, on gardens.
Cecily: Kipling once wrote, “Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful’, and sitting in the shade”.
Ishmael: I like that. How can I use it?
Cecily: Well, for me it means something about embracing motivated change in all forms. Making active decisions. Never getting complacent. We grow our gardens — alone or with others — and some seasons are made for poppies and others for Japanese maples and others for stones or sand to be tilled gently.
Ishmael: That’s beautiful.
Cecily: It’s beautiful or it’s trite. But sometimes there is beauty in the trite.
thedailymails 