Elle

“Sin is whatever obscures the soul.”
― André Gide, The Immoralist

“And immediately Okonkwo's eyes were opened and he saw the whole matter clearly. Living fire begets cold, impotent ash. He sighed again, deeply.”
― Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart

“I would want kids to talk and write about how the book makes them feel, what it reminded them of, if it changed their thoughts about anything. I’d have them keep a journal and have them freewrite after they read each assignment. What did this make you think about? That’s what I’d want to know. I think you could get some really original ideas that way, not the old regurgitated ones like man versus nature. Just shoot me if I ever assign anyone an essay about man versus nature. Questions like that are designed to pull you completely out of the story. Why would you want to pull kids out of the story? You want to push them further in, so they can feel everything the author tried so hard to create for them.”
― Lily King, Writers & Lovers

“However the simple fact that they have been resounding failures in our century does give them a certain spiritual quality. For all we know, they may be-these crushed wretches-the saints of our age.”
― John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces