Neni > Neni's Quotes

“Some things you know all your life. They are so simple and true they must be said without elegance, meter and rhyme...they must be naked and alone, they must stand for themselves.”
― Philip Levine

“We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.”
― Milan Kundera

“Sometimes books don't find us until the right time.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“We are not quite novels.
We are not quite short stories.
In the end, we are collected works.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“People, you'll find, aren't usually all good or bad. Sometimes they're just a little bit good and a whole lot bad. And sometimes they're mostly good with a dash of bad. And most of us, well, we fall in the middle somewhere.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere

“The words you can’t find, you borrow.
We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.
My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart.
We are not quite novels.
The analogy he is looking for is almost there.
We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that.
In the end, we are collected works.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“You forget all of it anyway. First, you forget everything you learned-the dates of the Hay-Herran Treaty and Pythagorean Theorem. You especially forget everything you didn't really learn, but just memorized the night before. You forget the names of all but one or two of your teachers, and eventually you'll forget those, too. You forget your junior class schedule and where you used to sit and your best friend's home phone number and the lyrics to that song you must have played a million times. For me, it was something by Simon & Garfunkel. Who knows what it will be for you? And eventually, but slowly, oh so slowly, you forget your humiliations-even the ones that seemed indelible just fade away. You forget who was cool and who was not, who was pretty, smart, athletic, and not. Who went to a good college. Who threw the best parties Who could get you pot. You forget all of them. Even the ones you said you loved, and even the ones you actually did. They're the last to go. And then once you've forgotten enough, you love someone else.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“On, there are so many lives. How we wish we could live them concurrently instead of one by one by one. We could select the best pieces of each, stringing them together like a strand of pearls. But that's not how it works. A human life is a beautiful mess.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere

“You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“Above all, mine is a love story. Unlike most love stories, this one involves chance, gravity, a dash of head trauma. It began with a coin toss. The coin came up tails. I was heads. Had it gone my way, there might not be a story at all. Just a chapter, or a sentence in a book whose greater theme had yet to be determined. Maybe this chapter would've had the faintest whisper of love about it. But maybe not. Sometimes, a girl needs to lose.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“Sorry but nothing of much importance ever happened to me...I'm just a girl who forgot to look both ways before crossing the street.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Elsewhere

“I wondered if the person who really loves you is the person who knows all your stories, the person who WANTS to know all your stories.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac

“Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us,” the passage goes, “but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“A question I've thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“Most people's problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you're the only person in the room.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“No Man Is An Island; Every Book Is A World.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“He wants to laugh out loud or punch a wall. He feels drunk or at least carbonated. Insane. At first, he thinks this is happiness, but then he determines it's love. Fucking love, he thinks. What a bother. It's completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“Remember that a fine education can be found in places other than the usual.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“Who are these people who think a book comes with a guarantee that they will like it?”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“A good marriage is, at least, one part conspiracy.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“I don’t want to die,” A.J. says after a bit. “I just find it difficult to be here all the time.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“Despite the fact that he loves books and owns a bookstore, A.J. does not particularly care for writers. He finds them to be unkempt, narcissistic, silly, and generally unpleasant people. He tries to avoid the ones who've written books he loves for fear that they will ruin their books for him.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“the more I believe that this is what the point of it all is. To connect, my dear little nerd. Only connect.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“My life is in these books. Read these and know my heart. We are not quire novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.”
― Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry

“A good book is like a good friend. It will stay with you for the rest of your life. When you first get to know it, it will give you excitement and adventure, and years later it will provide you with comfort and familiarity. And best of all, you can share it with your children or your grandchildren or anyone you love enough to let into its secrets.”
― Charlie Lovett, First Impressions: A Novel of Old Books, Unexpected Love, and Jane Austen

“Books are the mirrors of the soul.”
― Virginia Woolf, Between the Acts