Stephanie Butland > Quotes

“God, I don't love much but I love words.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“First lines did not define last pages in real life the way they did in books.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“There’s the simple love of books, of course: the knowledge that here is an escape, a chance to learn, a place for your heart and mind to romp and play.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“I like books cause they don't care
if your knickers match your bra
If you've washed your hair.
I like books cause they don't invade your space
They sit on your shelf
They don#t get in your face.
I like books cause they don't mind
Waht your heart contains
Who you've left behind.
I like a book cause it doesn't give a shirt
When you get to the end what you think of it.
Books don't care if you've got a degree
What you watch on TV.
Books don't judge if you've got tattoos
If your friends are few.
I like books cause they don't care.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“I reminded myself that a beginning and an ending are two different places, and, in real life, you might be able to make your own ending, whatever had gone before.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“I someties think I want to write a book of my life
So that when I meet you - or anyone new - I can hand it over and you can read it
Instead of trying to read me.
You can take it away and decide whether it's worth giving me your time.
You can think about if, the next time we are walking towards
each other, you'll smile without slowing down
Or cross the street and pretend you haven't seen me
Or stop and put an arm round my shoulder, steer me into the nearest pub, and buy me a pint of stout.
Because you'll know, having read the book, that stout is what I drink.
You see elegance of my proposal.
But every time I sit down to write the book, I hit a snag.
I could tell so many stories.
I could be a poet or a magician or a faild mathematician.
I could be happy or soul-sore or lonely.
I could start when I was born, when I was twelve, when I left university.
And the book would be different for each story I choose.
And the book would be true, and untrue, for each.
Our pasts are as unfixed as our futures, if you think about it.
And I like the freedom I have to tell a different story.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“This is why I don’t like talking to people. I never think of anything interesting to say. I need time to find words, and that’s hard when people are looking at me. Also, I don’t like people much. Well, some are okay. But not enough to make it a given.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“Archie says books are our best lovers and our most provoking friends.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“I know how much petty shit there is in the world and if I have an aim in life – apart from keeping my head down – it’s not to add to it.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“I don’t care if you don’t want to tell me things. But I do care that what we do tell each other is the truth.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“Wouldn't you be spooked? If you were in my position - oh, never mind, you wouldn't be in my position.”
― Stephanie Butland, The Lost for Words Bookshop

“I suppose it’s the fact that these small memories come from the kind of tiny reminders that you simply can’t predict, and so can’t protect yourself from, and they catch you, paper cuts across the heart.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“It's good to be reminded that the world is full of stories that are, potentially, at least as painful as yours.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“A book is a match in the smoking second between strike and flame.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“One thing I was realizing from seeing Rob was that, if you don't talk about your past, and you work in a bookshop, then your topics of conversation are basically 1. Books I've read and liked and why. 2. Books I've read and not liked and why. 3. Books I want to read, but haven't yet, and why. 4. Books I have decided not to read and why.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“There's no such thing as ordinary, just like there's not really a normal.And there's no such thing as special, either. Or rather, we bring our own special. We make it. We make it when we dare and we make it when we ask for help. We make our lives special when we choose to forgive and move on, and not to make ourselves the centre of everything. We make specialness by trusting to the music and the dance.”
― Stephanie Butland, The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae

“I don't see why women still have to be happy because of a man in the twenty-first century, as though we're not capable of our own, dick-free, joy.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“Nobody bothers children who read.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“Ask the questions you want to ask. Seek out the people you want in your life. It might not be as hard as you think.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“The details were fed to me like bread soaked in milk given to a Victorian invalid. A little at a time. Gentle, soft. Like that made a difference.”
― Stephanie Butland, The Lost for Words Bookshop

“There is a book in your hand. Behind it – maybe centuries behind it – stands an author. When you read their first sentence, you are completing their work.”
― Stephanie Butland, Found in a Bookshop

“She might be nearly forty but right now she misses her mother as though the missing is a toothache. She can imagine the smell of her parents’ house, lavender and bread and coffee; the kitchen, dark with a small window, a set of shelves with jars and jars and jars of this and that, all in rows. Her father in the doorway: ‘I am HOME!’ and her mother squealing as though this is the best and most surprising thing that has ever happened to her.”
― Stephanie Butland, Found in a Bookshop

“You know that books are safety and escape and wisdom and peace and the things that get you through.”
― Stephanie Butland, Found in a Bookshop

“In short: you, dear reader, are correct. You are always correct. Not only in what you imagine, but in what you feel. You are allowed to not-love the novel the rest of the world is raving about; you are allowed to cordially loathe your sister’s favourite author. Reading is not a test. Whether or not you love a book is not a matter for debate; and not something you can be persuaded into. Books are the magical everyday that is all your own. Read on, and enjoy.”
― Stephanie Butland, Found in a Bookshop

“You make me – valid. You”
― Stephanie Butland, The Lost for Words Bookshop

“But you say it “in-TREE-ging”, LJ, not “in-trig-you-ing”.’ I said it back to her, ‘In-TREE-ging.’ (Okay, this is a problem with books. But the only one.)”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“It had been a heaven of a place to grow up: seagulls, beach, and nooks and crannies; the feeling, when the town was full of tourists, that you were lucky because this place was your home.”
― Stephanie Butland, The Lost for Words Bookshop

“It felt as though his words, rather than heading out into the air were falling off the edge of his lower lip, dropping into my hair, and sliding down the side of my head and into my ear.”
― Stephanie Butland, Lost For Words

“This is how books work. They take what’s in them, and add what’s in you, and the interface, more often than not, leads to picking up that book every chance you get. Sometimes the power is so great that you’re up all night; sometimes you have to (and yes, I do mean have to) cancel a coffee date so you can get to the end.”
― Stephanie Butland, Found in a Bookshop

“Reading should be a pleasure and a joy, an education and a promise, a release and an escape. The books you choose for yourself should never, ever feel like a punishment or a chore.”
― Stephanie Butland, Found in a Bookshop