“He wasn't a complete human being at all. He was a tiny bit of one, unnaturally developed; something in a bottle, an organ kept alive in a laboratory. I thought he was a sort of primitive savage, but he was something absolutely modern and up-to-date that only this ghastly age could produce. A tiny bit of a man pretending he was the whole.”
― Brideshead Revisited
― Brideshead Revisited
“It is fate that I am here,' George persisted, 'but you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”
― A Room with a View
― A Room with a View
“Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.”
― A Room with a View
― A Room with a View
“My theme is memory, that winged host that soared about me one grey morning of war-time. These memories, which are my life—for we possess nothing certainly except the past—were always with me. Like the pigeons of St. Mark’s, they were everywhere, under my feet, singly, in pairs, in little honey-voiced congregations, nodding, strutting, winking, rolling the tender feathers of their necks, perching sometimes, if I stood still, on my shoulder or pecking a broken biscuit from between my lips; until, suddenly, the noon gun boomed and in a moment, with a flutter and sweep of wings, the pavement was bare and the whole sky above dark with a tumult of fowl. Thus it was that morning.”
― Brideshead Revisited
― Brideshead Revisited
“To understand all is to forgive all.”
― Brideshead Revisited
― Brideshead Revisited
Gef’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Gef’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Gef
Lists liked by Gef


















