suma!!
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"I completely understand the James Baldwin hype. Don’t get me wrong if Beale Street Could Talk was a great book but the religious imagery and descriptions in this book are so powerfully moving. The characterisation of John and the way his thoughts and feelings are so artfully expressed really allows you to understand him so much better. (Finished part one and two more to go!)" — Jul 29, 2025 06:02PM
"I completely understand the James Baldwin hype. Don’t get me wrong if Beale Street Could Talk was a great book but the religious imagery and descriptions in this book are so powerfully moving. The characterisation of John and the way his thoughts and feelings are so artfully expressed really allows you to understand him so much better. (Finished part one and two more to go!)" — Jul 29, 2025 06:02PM
Happy Place
by
The most important friendships in my life all came down to a decision made by strangers, chance.


“And with every step I took it became more impossible for me to turn back. And my mind was empty—or it was as though my mind had become one enormous, anaesthetized wound. I thought only, One day I'll weep for this. One of these days I'll start to cry.”
― Giovanni’s Room
― Giovanni’s Room

“Nora.” He just barely smiles. “You’re in books. Of course you don’t have a life. None of us do. There’s always something too good to read.”
― Book Lovers
― Book Lovers

“You do not,’ cried Giovanni, sitting up, ‘love anyone! You never have loved anyone, I am sure you never will! You love your purity, you love your mirror—you are just like a little virgin, you walk around with your hands in front of you as though you had some precious metal, gold, silver, rubies, maybe diamonds down there between your legs! You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it—man or woman. You want to be clean. You think you came here covered with soap and you think you will go out covered with soap—and you do not want to stink, not even for five minutes, in the meantime.’ He grasped me by the collar, wrestling and caressing at once, fluid and iron at once: saliva spraying from his lips and his eyes full of tears, but with the bones of his face showing and the muscles leaping in his arms and neck. ‘You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love. You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities. And you—you are immoral. You are, by far, the most immoral man I have met in all my life. Look, look what you have done to me. Do you think you could have done this if I did not love you? Is this what you should do to love?”
― Giovanni’s Room
― Giovanni’s Room

“Tell me, he said, "What is this thing about time? Why is it better to be late than early? People are always saying, we must wait, we must wait. what are they waiting for?"
"Well […] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel."
"And when you have waited—-has it made you sure?”
― Giovanni’s Room
"Well […] I guess people wait in order to make sure of what they feel."
"And when you have waited—-has it made you sure?”
― Giovanni’s Room

“You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.”
― Giovanni’s Room
― Giovanni’s Room

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