Max Ostrovsky

Max’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (7)
currently-reading‎ (0)
read‎ (1692)
did-not-finish‎ (0)
fiction‎ (1465)
fantasy‎ (557)
comics‎ (532)
sci-fi‎ (392)
horror‎ (333)
classics‎ (274)

historical‎ (227)
young-adult‎ (224)
pop‎ (211)
humor‎ (189)
non-fiction‎ (145)
children‎ (124)
contemporary‎ (116)
short-stories‎ (102)
mythology‎ (86)
satire‎ (83)

mystery‎ (77)
japanese‎ (65)
poetry‎ (64)
philosophy‎ (63)
translated-foreign-language‎ (62)
magic-realism‎ (55)
chick-lit‎ (54)
plays‎ (42)
self-help‎ (42)
memior‎ (40)

favorites‎ (29)
biography‎ (28)
modernism‎ (28)
spanish‎ (18)
post-modernism‎ (17)
fairy-tales‎ (16)
meta-fiction‎ (16)
beat-era‎ (12)
russian‎ (12)
french‎ (10)

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“Look, Gail." Roark got up, reached out, tore a thick branch off a tree, held it in both hands, one fist closed at each end; then, his wrists and knuckles tensed against the resistance, he bent the branch slowly into an arc. "Now I can make what I want of it: a bow, a spear, a cane, a railing. That's the meaning of life."

"Your strength?"

"Your work." He tossed the branch aside. "The material the earth offers you and what you make of it . . . ”
― Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead

40 likes

“In the soft grey silence he could hear the bump of the balls: and from here and from there through the quiet air the sound of the cricket bats: pick, pack, pock, puck: like drops of water in a fountain falling softly in the brimming bowl.”
― James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

20 likes

“When the beer is gone, so are they -- flexing their cars on up the boulevard.”
― Amy Hempel

4 likes

“It was still very wet under the trees. A careless tug at a branch might flip cold rainbow-edged drops down your back. And the sky was gray as concrete. But they enjoyed the silence, the soft sucking ground matted with last year's needles.”
― Jean Thompson

2 likes

“Remember that there are two kinds of beauty: one of the soul and the other of the body. That of the soul displays its radiance in intelligence, in chastity, in good conduct, in generosity, and in good breeding, and all these qualities may exist in an ugly man. And when we focus our attention upon that beauty, not upon the physical, love generally arises with great violence and intensity. I am well aware that I am not handsome, but I also know that I am not deformed, and it is enough for a man of worth not to be a monster for him to be dearly loved, provided he has those spiritual endowments I have spoken of.”
― Miguel Cervantes

tags: beauty, dichotomy

137 likes

More of Max’s quotes…