Discover new books on Goodreads
Meet your next favorite book

Joe

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Joe.


Burning in Water,...
Rate this book
Clear rating

progress: 
 
  (25%)
— Oct 26, 2026 10:41PM

 
On the Calculatio...
Joe is currently reading
bookshelves: currently-reading
Rate this book
Clear rating

progress: 
 
  (page 50 of 176)
— Oct 19, 2026 10:11PM

 
Loading...
Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused
“Among other things, you'll find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened and even sickened by human behavior. You're by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You'll learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It's a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”
― J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger
“An artist's only concern is to shoot for some kind of perfection, and on his own terms, not anyone else's.”
― J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey
tags: art

William Shakespeare
“This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
― William Shakespeare, Hamlet

Lorraine Hansberry
“Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.”
― Lorraine Hansberry

Mark Haddon
“I find people confusing.

This is for two main reasons.

The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words. Siobhan says that if you raise one eyebrow it can mean lots of different things. It can mean "I want to do sex with you" and it can also mean "I think that what you just said was very stupid."

Siobhan also says that if you close your mouth and breathe out loudly through your nose, it can mean that you are relaxed, or that you are bored, or that you are angry, and it all depends on how much air comes out of your nose and how fast and what shape your mouth is when you do it and how you are sitting and what you said just before and hundreds of other things which are too complicated to work out in a few seconds.

The second main reason is that people often talk using metaphors. These are examples of metaphors

I laughed my socks off.
He was the apple of her eye.
They had a skeleton in the cupboard.
We had a real pig of a day.
The dog was stone dead.

The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another, and it comes from the Greek words meta (which means from one place to another) and ferein (which means to carry), and it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor.

I think it should be called a lie because a pig is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.”
― Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

220 Goodreads Librarians Group — 349076 members — last activity 2 minutes ago
Goodreads Librarians are volunteers who help ensure the accuracy of information about books and authors in the Goodreads' catalog. The Goodreads Libra ...more
year in books
Lynn Me...
56 books | 314 friends

Kenny
4,606 books | 1,659 friends

Adam Cadre
232 books | 3 friends

Jackie
1,251 books | 168 friends

Jim
Jim
554 books | 91 friends

Marissa
2,265 books | 62 friends

Roxane
4,445 books | 9,725 friends

Amorak ...
585 books | 460 friends

More friends…



Polls voted on by Joe

Lists liked by Joe