Nik

“Look at a skilled blacksmith working steel. To the untrained eye, he's merely repeating the same hammer blows, but anyone trained in the art of calligraphy knows that each time the blacksmith lifts the hammer and brings it down, the intensity of the blow is different.
The hand repeats the same gesture, but as it approaches the metal it understands that it must touch it with more or less force. It's the same thing with repetition: it may seem the same, but it's always different. The moment will come when you no longer think about what you're doing. You become the letter, the ink, the paper, the word.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Witch of Portobello

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“A good book is an event in my life.”
― Stendhal, The Red and the Black

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.”
― Gustave Flaubert