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“Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.”
― Time Regained
― Time Regained
“Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire.”
― Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings
― Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings
“Let everything happen to you
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
―
Beauty and terror
Just keep going
No feeling is final”
―
“Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you're weak where you thought yourself strong. You'll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself — as I know you already have — in dark places, alone, and afraid.
What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.
From "A Left-Handed Commencement Address," Mills College 1983”
―
What I hope for you, for all my sisters and daughters, brothers and sons, is that you will be able to live there, in the dark place. To live in the place that our rationalizing culture of success denies, calling it a place of exile, uninhabitable, foreign.
From "A Left-Handed Commencement Address," Mills College 1983”
―
“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially "escapist," nor "fugitive." In its fairy-tale -- or otherworld -- setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
― Tolkien On Fairy-stories
― Tolkien On Fairy-stories
Phil’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Phil’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
592 books
|
4 friends
500 books
|
42 friends
249 books
|
163 friends
110 books
|
312 friends
0 books
|
40 friends
3 books
|
29 friends
94 books
|
62 friends
24 books
|
111 friends
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