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A century ago, survival was the main event. Longing was an accepted part of existence. Today, the inability to achieve happiness or fit in with the herd is treated as a kind of moral failure.
“To fly is the opposite of traveling: you cross a gap in space, you vanish into the void, you accept not being in any place for a duration that is itself a kind of void in time; then you reappear, in a place and in a moment with no relation to the where and the when in which you vanished.”
― If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
― If on a Winter's Night a Traveller
“We’re torn between regret, which is the price to pay for things not done, and remorse, which is the cost for having done them. Between one and the other, time plays all its cozy little tricks.”
― Enigma Variations
― Enigma Variations
“The first sensation this book should convey is what I feel when I hear the telephone ring; I say “should” because I doubt that written words can give even a partial idea of it: it is not enough to declare that my reaction is one of refusal, of flight from this aggressive and threatening summons, as it is also a feeling of urgency, intolerableness, coercion that impels me to obey the injunction of that sound, rushing to answer even though I am certain that nothing will come of it save suffering and discomfort.”
― If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
― If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
“Until then I had thought each book spoke of the things, human or divine, that lie outside books. Now I realized that not infrequently books speak of books: it is as if they spoke among themselves. In the light of this reflection, the library seemed all the more disturbing to me. It was then the place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human mind, a treasure of secrets emanated by many minds, surviving the death of those who had produced them or had been their conveyors.”
― The Name of the Rose
― The Name of the Rose
“A sense of pleasure or satisfaction with a dictionary is possible. It might arise when finding confirmation of a word’s guessed spelling (i.e., i before e), or upon retrieving from it a word that had momentarily come loose from the tip of your tongue. The pleasure of reading rather than using a dictionary might come when amongst its pages you find a word that is new to you and neatly sums up a sensation, quality or experience that had hitherto gone nameless: a moment of solidarity and recognition—someone else must have had the same sensation as me—I am not alone! Pleasure may come with the sheer glee at the textures of an unfamiliar word, its new taste between your teeth. Glume. Forb. The anatomy of a word strimmed clean or porched in your teeth.”
― The Liar's Dictionary
― The Liar's Dictionary
Thomas’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Thomas’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1 book
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154 friends
66 books
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39 friends
45 books
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49 friends
1 book
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51 friends
2 books
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4 friends
11 books
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8 friends
46 books
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33 friends
1 book
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42 friends
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