“What an astonishing thing a book is. It's a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you're inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."
[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”
― Cosmos
[Cosmos, Part 11: The Persistence of Memory (1980)]”
― Cosmos
“I had already found that it was not good to be alone, and so made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self; but my books were always my friends, let fail all else.”
― Sailing Alone around the World
― Sailing Alone around the World
“I need you to be a monster /
which is to say, I am trying not to love you /
which is to say, I am still dreaming of kissing your claws.”
―
which is to say, I am trying not to love you /
which is to say, I am still dreaming of kissing your claws.”
―
“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the Universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
― Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe
― Daily Afflictions: The Agony of Being Connected to Everything in the Universe
Oya’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Oya’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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