We are survivors, of each other. We have been shark to one another, but also lifeboat. That counts for something.
—Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye
Quotes
Books, she has found, are a way to live a thousand lives—or to find strength in a very long one.
—V. E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
Words never mean what what we want them to mean. If we communicated with something like music, we would never be misunderstood.
—Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated
You’d Sing Too
You’d sing too
if you found yourself
in a place like this
You wouldn’t worry about
whether you were as good
as Ray Charles or Edith Piaf
You’d sing
You’d sing
not for yourself
but to make a self
out of the old food
rotting in the astral bowel
and the loveless thud
of your own breathing
You’d become a singer
faster than it takes
to hate a rival’s charm
And you’d sing, darling
You’d sing too
Aprils have never meant much to me, autumns seem that season of beginning, spring.
—Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
In principle and reality, libraries are life-enhancing palaces of wonder.
—Gail Honeyman, Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
It’s good to be foolish from time to time. It keeps your spirit young.
—Ottessa Moshfegh, Eileen
Tonight I Can Write the Saddest Lines (Excerpt)
by Pablo Neruda
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
We sleep when we don’t love.
—Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
That Book Broad 