Emily Schmidt

“It’s a particular kind of pleasure, of intimacy, loving a book with someone.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers

“It's always a matter, isn't it, of waiting for the world to come unraveled? When things hold together, it's always only temporary.”
― Rebecca Makkai, The Great Believers

“Progress is man’s mode of existence. The general life of the human race is called Progress, the collective stride of the human race is called Progress. Progress advances; it makes the great human and terrestrial journey towards the celestial and the divine; it has its halting places where it rallies the laggard troop, it has its stations where it meditates, in the presence of some splendid Canaan suddenly unveiled on its horizon, it has its nights when it sleeps; and it is one of the poignant anxieties of the thinker that he sees the shadow resting on the human soul, and that he gropes in darkness without being able to awaken that slumbering Progress.”
― Victor Hugo, Victor Hugo: The Complete Novels

“Writing a book, just like building a library, is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration that you believe in the persistence of memory.”
― Susan Orlean, The Library Book