“...no mind ever grew fat on a diet of novels. The pleasure which they occasionally offer is far too heavily paid for: they undermine the finest characters. They teach us to think ourselves into other men's places. Thus we acquire a taste for change. The personality becomes dissolved in pleasing figments of imagination. The reader learns to understand every point of view. Willingly he yields himself to the pursuit of other people's goals and loses sight of his own. Novels are so many wedges which the novelist, an actor with his pen, inserts into the closed personality of the reader. The better he calculates the size of the wedge and the strength of the resistance, so much the more completely does he crack open the personality of the victim. Novels should be prohibited by the State.”
―
―
“Not TV or illegal drugs but the automobile has been the chief destroyer of American communities.”
― Dark Age Ahead
― Dark Age Ahead
“Travelling, one accepts everything; indignation stays at home. One looks, one listens, one is roused to enthusiasm by the most dreadful things because they are new. Good travellers are heartless.”
― The Voices of Marrakesh
― The Voices of Marrakesh
Carlos’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Carlos’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Carlos
Lists liked by Carlos














