Robert Hillman > Quotes

“Hannah enjoyed watching as he read; she barely cared what it was she'd given him. Or maybe that wasn't true. She did care. But the way he held a book in his hands, and the frown of concentration on his brow, kindled love in her heart. She wanteed to stroke him as he read. The altering expressions on his face were like cloud shadows passing over a landscape.”
― Robert Hillman, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

“Love and loathing can hold no surprises for most people in middle age. What we haven't gorged on, we've sampled.”
― Robert Hillman, Joyful

“Hannah was full of admiration for Tom's knowledge...He'd come to understand, though, that it wasn't really flattery; instead it was a sort of delight that was roused in Hannah for anything she didn't know; anything new to her. She could never come to the end of all that pleased her.”
― Robert Hillman, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

“Suppose Alice is in the swimming pool construction business. Alice knows you are on a trip to _______ (fill in the blank here and daydream about the fabulous place you select, but not for more than two minutes).”
― Robert Hillman, Principles of Contract Law, 3d

“You can be many things if you are British and still belong.”
― Robert Hillman, Joyful

“Each book, to Eilam Babel, held its place in the worldwide narrative, a single story told by thousands of voices. He had favorites - Moses Mendelssohn, Tolstoy, Aristotle - but he never spoke of them as giants among the less accomplished, rather as leaders.”
― Robert Hillman, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

“On the right, the highway paddock, where Stubby and Jo (horses) lived in what amounted to a boutique hospice, since both were dyingat a lazy pace from being to old to go on living.”
― Robert Hillman, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

“He was a man who approved of happy endings. In life itself, you didn't get the chance to choose an ending; but of a writer could give Bob Cratchit a Merry Christmas, then that's what the writer should do.”
― Robert Hillman, The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted

“To Wordsworth nature was the nurse; to us, it's the patient.”
― Robert Hillman, Joyful