Lida Berisha

“I began my life as I shall no doubt end it: among books. In my grandfather's study, they were everywhere; it was forbidden to dust them except once a year, before the October term. Even before I could read, I already revered these raised stones; upright or leaning, wedged together like bricks on the library shelves or nobly placed like avenues of dolmens, I felt that our family prosperity depended on them. They were all alike, and I was romping about in a tiny sanctuary, surrounded by squat, ancient monuments which had witnessed my birth, which would witness my death and whose permanence guaranteed me a future as calm as my past. I used to touch them in secret to honour my hands with their dust but I did not have much idea what to do with them and each day I was present at ceremonies whose meaning escaped me: my grandfather - so clumy, normally, that my grandmother buttoned his gloves for him - handled these cultural objects with the dexterity of an officiating priest. Hundreds of times I saw him get up absent-mindedly, walk round the table, cross the room in two strides, unhesitatingly pick out a volume without allowing himself time for choice, run through it as he went back to his armchair, with a combined movement of his thumb and right forefinger, and, almost before he sat down, open it with a flick "at the right page," making it creak like a shoe. I sometimes got close enough to observe these boxes which opened like oysters and I discovered the nakedness of their internal organs, pale, dank, slightly blistering pages, covered with small black veins, which drank ink and smelt of mildew.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, The Words: The Autobiography of Jean-Paul Sartre

“Memory is a funny thing. Makes you remember things that didn't really happen and forget things that did. I'm so scared I'll forget because if I forget all these things that happened then there will be no one on earth who remembers them. And if they're forgotten it's like they never happened. No one can prove it. Some writer said that people become our memories of them. So I guess if no one remembers you, then you weren't really here. - almost him”
― Nicole Blackman, Blood Sugar

“Because, Nora, sometimes the only way to learn is to live.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library

“You can have everything and feel nothing.”
― Matt Haig, The Midnight Library