ManTheDan
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manthedan.bsky.social
ManTheDan
@manthedan.bsky.social
35M, he/him. Reader, gamer, just overall run of the mill. I'm also like really into Lion King.
Jose Saramago's The Gospel According to Jesus Christ keeps the rebellious spirit of its author, not without his usual sardonic humor. This novel goes places, sometimes terrifying ones:
"I know nothing about God, except that His pleasure is as terrifying as His displeasure."
#SundaySentence
December 7, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Timur Vermes' Look Who's Back gets the pain of not being a morning person. Never thought I'd be quoting fictional Hitler:
“What irritates me most of all about these morning people is their horribly good temper, as if they have been up for three hours and already conquered France.”
#SundaySentence
November 30, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot reminds us never to push away the people we love, no matter how mad we are with them:
"Don't touch me! Don't question me! Don't speak to me! Stay with me!"

This play is timeless, I love it
#SundaySentence
November 9, 2025 at 2:29 PM
"Trump Attends Another Extravagant Party at Mar-a-Lago as Thousands, Including Government Employees, Hit Food Banks" Circa: 2025
November 9, 2025 at 2:17 PM
Tonight in jeopardy
November 5, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Randy Ribay's The Reckoning of Roku has this simple but effective way of showing how we sometimes hide our true feelings behind bravado:
"Wearing anger's mask, fear crept over Sozin as he read."
#SundaySentence
November 2, 2025 at 2:27 PM
Randy Ribay's The Reckoning of Roku feels like a different beast from its predecessors, but this poignant moment of considering death when facing the loss of a loved one struck me:
"To be nothing might be a mercy compared to living the rest of his life existing as half of himself."
#SundaySentence
October 26, 2025 at 4:42 PM
Andrzej Sapkowski's Crossroads of Ravens (tr. David French) has this wonderful line that manages to summarize this kind of story:
"A crossroads. A symbolic place. Four roads leading to four points of the compass. A place of choice and decision. Which you will have to take, Geralt."
#SundaySentence
October 19, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things has a raw way of telling you that, even if we vie for a just, equitable world, maybe it's not in our human nature to have it:
"You want Paradise, you gotta build it on war, on blood, on envy and naked greed."
That's an alarming thought
#SundaySentence
October 12, 2025 at 3:15 PM
Michel Faber's The Book of Strange New Things waxes poetic about the quiet anxiety of looking at a full email inbox:
"Each capsule bore a number: the date of transmission. To his wife, these messages were already History. To him, they were a frozen Present, yet to be experienced."
#SundaySentence
October 5, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Fell in love with Jose Saramago all over again while rereading Cain, his skeptic take on the old testament:
"God should be as clear and transparent as a pane of glass and not go wasting his energies on creating an atmosphere of constant terror and fear."
#SundaySentence
September 28, 2025 at 4:02 PM
For today's #SundaySentence, The Iron Will of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee reminds us taking charge also means making sacrifices:
"You can't win every battle, no matter how powerful or clever or perfect you are."
September 14, 2025 at 2:05 PM
Just finished The Epic Crush of Genie Lo by F.C. Yee this week and, really, it 𝘥𝘰 be like that sometimes:
"The major cultural contribution of this part of the country was recording yourself dancing alongside your car while it rolled forward with no one driving it."
Fun read!
#SundaySentence
September 7, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Reread Alan Moore's (and Dave Gibbons') Watchmen this week, and I couldn't not share this beautifully time-bending #SundaySentence with you:
"Things have their shape in time, not space alone. Some marble blocks have statues within them, embedded in their future."
August 31, 2025 at 1:54 PM
While not perfect, Nisio Isin's Otorimomogatari (translated by Ko Ransom) contains a fun deconstruction of the human's place in the food chain that starts right here:
"Humans—aren't eaten by anything. We only eat, only kill... There's no punishment for our crime."
#SundaySentence
August 24, 2025 at 6:44 PM
On a philosophy kick right now and Slavoj Žižek's In Defense of Lost Causes scratches that itch of existential crisis:
"We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom."
#SundaySentence
August 17, 2025 at 2:21 PM
Finished R. F. Kuang's The Burning God this week and I'll never forget this trilogy, such a hateful, sad story had to have a quote that encapsulates the whole thing:
"Hate was its own kind of fire and if you had nothing else, it kept you warm."
#SundaySentence
August 10, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Great turn of phrase by R. F. Kuang's The Burning God:
"Let them think of us as dirt, Rin thought. She was dirt. Her army was dirt. But dirt was common, ubiquitous, and patient, and necessary. The soil gave life to the country."
#SundaySentence
August 3, 2025 at 3:04 PM
For all its darkness, R. F. Kuang's The Dragon Republic can also be both poetic and tragic:
"Fire and water looked so lovely together. It was a pity they destroyed each other by nature."
#SundaySentence
July 27, 2025 at 2:19 PM
This sobering picture of war from R. F. Kuang's The Dragon Republic:
"They burned for someone else’s war, someone else’s wrongs; someone they had never met had made the decision they should die, so in their last moments they would have had no idea why their skin was scorching off."
#SundaySentence
July 20, 2025 at 2:51 PM
This Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus quote will live rent-free in my head when human augmentation starts:
"You want to know how super-intelligent cyborgs might treat ordinary flesh-and-blood humans? Better start by investigating how humans treat their less intelligent animal cousins."
#SundaySentence
July 13, 2025 at 3:50 PM
R. F. Kuang's The Poppy War reminds us that there's no such thing as leaving things to chance: "You humans always think you’re destined for things, for tragedy or for greatness. Destiny is a myth. Destiny is the only myth. The gods choose nothing. You chose."
#SundaySentence
July 6, 2025 at 5:04 PM
R. F. Kuang's The Poppy War gives us a sobering tale that rings true for both the 20th century and today:
"War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who remains."
#SundaySentence
June 29, 2025 at 2:59 PM
With this rather birdy #SundaySentence, Susanna Clarke's Piranesi invites us to reason out the world through the mind of a child:
"Perhaps the wisdom of birds resides, not in the individual, but in the flock, the congregation."
June 22, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Douglas Adams' Mostly Harmless imparting some truths. Also see: the US constitution.
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools."
#SundaySentence
June 15, 2025 at 4:52 PM