June 2012
39 posts
“A sailor,” he said, “chooses the wind that takes the ship from safe port … but winds have a mind of their own.”
—Avi, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle (thanks, beautyofmonotony)
“The library … is no mere cabinet of curiosities; it’s a world, complete and completable, and it is filled with secrets. Like a world, it has its changes and its seasons, which belie the permanence that ordered ranks of books imply. Tugged by the gravity of readers’ desires, books flow in and out of the library like the tides. The people who shelve the books in [Harvard’s] Widener talk about the library’s breathing — at the start of the term, the stacks exhale books in great swirling clouds; at the end of term, the library inhales, and the books fly back.”
—A brief history of the library and the survival and destruction of knowledge. (via explore-blog)
“As we seem to get a grip on time via numbers, time gets an ever-tighter grip on us.”
—Fascinating read on “the tyranny of the clock” and how we cling to measures of time to navigate existence. Also see these 7 essential books on time. (via explore-blog)
“I do not know everything; still many things I understand.”
—Madeleine L’Engle, A Wrinkle in Time (via bookmania)
“And it seemed that the book in their hands knew what they were feeling and gave them its support and confirmation.”
—Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago, trans. Max Hayward and Manya Harari (thanks, bleedingwordswordswords)
Wise Words
- ME: Why is work so boring?!
- MOM: That is why it is called WORK and not ADVENTURE
“I just want what we all want: a comfortable couch, a nice beverage, a weekend of no distractions and a book that will stop time, lift me out of my quotidian existence and alter my thinking forever. Either that, or the latest photos of celebrities’ babies.”
—Elizabeth Gilbert, NY Times Book Review (via vikingpenguinbooks)
“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.”
—Alfred Hitchcock on the art of brevity. Also see Hitchcock on the secret of happiness. (via explore-blog)
“I get up early. I like to read a little before anyone but the dog is up. I also like to read at night, not in bed but just before I go to bed. I don’t read anything electronically. I don’t write electronically, either — except e-mails to my family and friends. I write in longhand. I have always written first drafts by hand, but I used to write subsequent drafts and insert pages on a typewriter. Now (for the last two books) I write all my drafts by hand. It’s the right speed for me — slow.”
—How John Irving reads and writes. (via explore-blog)
“In order to move on, you must understand why you felt what you did and why you no longer need to feel it.”
—Mitch Albom, Five People You Meet in Heaven (via bookmania)
“She felt herself teetering on the edge of possibilities.”
—Avi, Beyond the Western Sea (thanks, nocowardsoul)
“[Why do I tell you these things?]
You are not even here.” —John Ashbery, from “This Room” (via the-final-sentence)
You are not even here.” —John Ashbery, from “This Room” (via the-final-sentence)
