“Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.”
― De Profundis
― De Profundis
“What is an "instant" death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.”
― Looking for Alaska
― Looking for Alaska
“Words! Mere words! How terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere words! Was there anything so real as words?”
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
“It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
“Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.”
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
― The Picture of Dorian Gray
Johanne’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Johanne’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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