“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
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“Being praised essentially means that one is receiving judgment from another person as 'good.' And the measure of what is good or bad about that act is that person's yardstick. If receiving praise is what one is after, one will have no choice but to adapt to that person's yardstick and put the brakes on one's own freedom.”
― The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
― The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
“PHILOSOPHER: To quote Adler again: ‘The important thing is not what one is born with, but what use one makes of that equipment.”
― The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
― The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness
“Such wounds to the heart will probably never heal. But we cannot simply sit and stare at our wounds forever.”
― 1Q84
― 1Q84
“The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks.”
― Letters to a Young Contrarian
― Letters to a Young Contrarian
Katya’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Katya’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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