P. > P.'s Quotes

“வெற்றி பெற்றவனை விட தோற்றவனிடம் தான் ஆட்டோகிராப் வாங்க வேண்டும் போல் இருக்கிறது .. காரணம் - வெற்றி விளையாட்டை பெருமை கொள்ள செய்கிறது, தோல்வி விளையாட்டை புரிந்துகொள்ள செய்கிறது.. எல்லா விளையாட்டு வீரர்களும் ஒரு முறையாவது தோற்றவர்கள்தானே ..”
― S.Ramakrishnan

“ உலகம் முழுவதும் வீடுகள் இருக்கின்றன. எல்லா வீடுகளிலும் ஜன்னல்கள் இருக்கின்றன. எல்லா ஜன்னலுக்கு பின்னும் ஒரு சிறுவனோ சிறுமியோ உலகை வியப்பு கலையாமல் பார்த்து கொண்டேயிருக்கிறார்கள் ” - (ஜன்னல் வழியான உலகு)”
― S.Ramakrishnan

“Nothing lasts forever.”
― Sidney Sheldon

“Book collecting is an obsession, an occupation, a disease, an addiction, a fascination, an absurdity, a fate. It is not a hobby. Those who do it must do it.”
― Jeanette Winterson

“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away.”
― Stephen Hawking

“Woke up this morning with a terrific urge to lie in bed all day and read.”
― Raymond Carver

“bookshops are
time machines
spaceships
story-makers
secret-keepers
dragon-tamers
dream-catchers
fact-finders
& safe places.

(this book is for those who know this to be true)”
― Jen Campbell, The Bookshop Book

“CUSTOMER: I’d like to buy this audiobook.
BOOKSELLER: Great.
CUSTOMER: Only, I don’t really like this narrator.
BOOKSELLER: Oh.
CUSTOMER: Do you have a selection of narrators to choose from? Ideally, I’d like Benedict Cumberbatch”
― Jen Campbell, More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“CUSTOMER: Hi.
BOOKSELLER: Hi there, how can I help?
CUSTOMER: Could you please explain Kindle to me.
BOOKSELLER: Sure. It’s an e-reader, which means you download books and read them on a small hand-held computer.
CUSTOMER: Oh OK, I see. So . . . this Kindle. Are the books on that paperback or hardback?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Bookshop Customer: 'Who wrote the bible?'
Customer's friend: 'Jesus.”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“CUSTOMER: I don’t know why she wants it, but my wife asked for a copy of The Dinosaur Cookbook.

BOOKSELLER: The Dinah Shore Cookbook?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Customer: I'm looking for a book for my son. He's six.
Bookseller: How about this one - it's about-
Customer: Yeah, whatever, I'll take it.”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Customer: Did Charles Dickens ever write anything fun?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“CUSTOMER: Do you have a copy of Nineteen Eighty Six?
BOOKSELLER: Nineteen Eighty Six?
CUSTOMER: Yeah, Orwell.
BOOKSELLER: Oh – Nineteen Eighty Four.
CUSTOMER: No, I’m sure it’s Nineteen Eighty. Six; I’ve always remembered it because it’s the year I was born.”
― Jen Campbell

“These places are time machines, spaceships, story-makers, secret-keepers. They are dragon-tamers, dream-catchers, fact-finders, and safe places. They are full of infinite possibilities and tales worth taking home.”
― Jen Campbell, The Bookshop Book

“bookseller: Can I help at all?
customer: Yes, where’s your fiction section?
bookseller: It starts over on the far wall. Are you looking for anything in particular?
customer: Yes, any books by Stefan Browning.
bookseller: I’m not familiar with him, what kind of books has he written?
customer: I don’t know if he’s written any. You see, my name’s Stefan Browning, and I always like to go into
bookshops to see if anyone with my name has written a book.
bookseller: . . . right.
customer: Because then I can buy it, you see, and carry it around with me and tell everyone that I’ve had a novel published.Then everyone will think I’m really cool, don’t you think?”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“CUSTOMER: What kind of bookshop is this?
BOOKSELLER: We're an antiquarian bookshop.
CUSTOMER: Oh, so you sell books about fish.”
― Jen Campbell, Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops

“Books: a beautifully browsable invention that needs no electricity and exists in a readable form no matter what happens.”
― Nicholson Baker

“Souls cross ages like clouds cross skies, an' tho' a cloud's shape nor hue nor size don't stay the same, it's still a cloud an' so is a soul. Who can say where the cloud's blowed from or who the soul'll be 'morrow? Only Sonmi the east an' the west an' the compass an' the atlas, yay, only the atlas o' clouds.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“Wasn’t friendship its own miracle, the finding of another person who made the entire lonely world seem somehow less lonely?”
― Hanya Yanagihara, A Little Life

“If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“She is very plain. What does Henry see in her?'"
“He thinks she's stupid. He finds it restful.”
― Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies

“Love is nature's way of ensuring pregnancy”
― Sujatha(சுஜாதா), பிரிவோம் சந்திப்போம் [Pirivom Santhippom]

“உவமைகள் அவளை வர்ணிக்க ஓவர்டைம் வாங்க வேண்டும்”
― Sujatha, கொலையுதிர் காலம் [Kolaiyuthir Kaalam]

“அறிவதொவ்வொன்றும் அறியாமையையே..”
― Jeyamohan

“இலக்கணம் பின்னால் ஊர்ந்து ஊர்ந்து வரும், இலக்கியம் முன்னால் பறந்து சென்றுகொண்டிருக்கும்”
― Jeyamohan

“But I too hate long books: the better, the worse. If they're bad they merely make me pant with the effort of holding them up for a few minutes. But if they're good, I turn into a social moron for days, refusing to go out of my room, scowling and growling at interruptions, ignoring weddings and funerals, and making enemies out of friends. I still bear the scars of Middlemarch.”
― Vikram Seth, A Suitable Boy

“I sometimes seem to myself to wander around the world merely accumulating material for future nostalgias.”
― Vikram Seth, From Heaven Lake: Travels Through Sinkiang and Tibet

“It was war, and in war the truth was almost always the first casualty.”
― Vince Flynn, Executive Power

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico