“Do you think that I count the days? There is only one day left, always starting over: it is given to us at dawn and taken away from us at dusk.”
―
―
“But people didn’t understand what I meant, as usual—when I say something, they don’t understand it, for what I say doesn’t mean that I said what I said, he said, I thought. I say something, he said, I thought, and I’m saying something completely different—thus I’ve spent my entire life in misunderstandings, in nothing but misunderstandings, he said, I thought. We are, to put it precisely, born into misunderstanding and never escape this condition of misunderstanding as long as we live—we can squirm and twist as much as we like, it doesn’t help. But everyone can see this, he said, I thought—for everyone says something repeatedly and is misunderstood, this is the only point where everybody understands everybody else, he said, I thought.”
― The Loser
― The Loser
“It is one of the most detestable habits of a Liliputian mind to credit other people with its own malignant pettiness.”
― Le Père Goriot
― Le Père Goriot
“We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it.”
―
―
“He looked at her as a man might look at a faded flower he had plucked, in which it was difficult for him to trace the beauty that had made him pick and so destroy it”
― Anna Karenina
― Anna Karenina
Marilena’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Marilena’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Marilena
Lists liked by Marilena
















