“We need the 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 inside us.”
―
―
“The choice to worry about why we are doing something more than how we do something is risky business.”
― The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters
― The Answer to How Is Yes: Acting on What Matters
“Septimus. When we have found all the mysteries and lost all the meaning, we will be all alone, on an empty shore.
Thomasina. Then we will dance. Is this a waltz?”
― Arcadia
Thomasina. Then we will dance. Is this a waltz?”
― Arcadia
“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.”
― Meditations
― Meditations
“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It's like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can't stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
― Bird by Bird
― Bird by Bird
Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge
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An annual reading challenge to to help you stretch your reading limits and explore new voices, worlds, and genres! The challenge begins in January, bu ...more
The Roman History Book Club
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This new Roman History Book Club was created to fill a gap in the vast wastelands of the Goodreads Groups. Although there are groups for overall histo ...more
Gary’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Gary’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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