“IN T H E last twenty-five years I have had a lot of people staying with me and sometimes I am tempted to write an essay on guests. There are the guests who never shut a door after them and never turn out the light when they leave their room. There are the guests who throw themselves on their bed in muddy boots to have a nap after lunch, so that the counterpane has to be cleaned on their departure. There are the guests who smoke in bed and burn holes in your sheets. There are the guests who are on a regime and have to have special food cooked for them and there are the guests who wait till their glass is filled with a vintage claret and then say: "I won't have any, thank you." There are the guests who never put back a book in the place from which they took it and there are the guests who take away a volume from a set and never return it. There are the guests who borrow money from you when they are leaving and do not pay it back. There are the guests who can never be alone for a minute and there are the guests who are seized with a desire to talk the moment they see you glancing at a paper. There are the guests who, wherever they are, want to be somewhere else and there are the guests who want to be doing something from the time they get up in the morning till the time they go to bed at night. There are the guests who treat you as though they were SOME NOVELISTS I HAVE KNOWN 459 gauleiters in a conquered province. There are the guests who bring three weeks* laundry with them to have washed at your expense and there are the guests who send their clothes to the cleaners and leave you to pay the bill. There are the guests who telephone to London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and New York, and never think of inquiring how much it costs. There are the guests who take all they can get and offer nothing in return. There are also the guests who are happy just to be with you, who seek to please, who have resources of their own, who amuse you, whose conversation is delightful, whose interests are varied, who exhilarate and excite you, who in short give you far more than you”
―
―
“To the acute observer no one can produce the most casual work without disclosing the innermost secrets of his soul.”
― Moon and Sixpence
― Moon and Sixpence
“Stop being a pussy and go do something amazing.”
― The Universe Doesn't Give a Flying Fuck About You
― The Universe Doesn't Give a Flying Fuck About You
“I have never encountered, not even in witchcraft trials, a dead man whom God or the Devil allowed to climb up from the abyss to erase the evidence of his misdeed—then”
― The Name of the Rose
― The Name of the Rose
David Mitchell fans
— 143 members
— last activity Dec 29, 2019 09:41AM
For fans of the excellent writing of David Mitchell, as well as discussing similar authors and talking to those with similar tastes.
David Foster Wallace
— 299 members
— last activity Oct 15, 2016 07:21PM
A group for the amazing work of David Foster Wallace, now deceased. RIP 1962-2008 Feel free to add his books to the bookshelf for the group.
Any Daphne Du Maurier fans out there?
— 109 members
— last activity Jan 15, 2019 04:39PM
I'm just getting into discovering (or should I say rediscovering this author and loving it - and hope more readers will give her a whirl as well. ...more
Fans of Arthur C. Clarke
— 104 members
— last activity Jun 01, 2019 11:56AM
This group is open to all fans of the master of science fiction, Arthur C. Clarke. The group is dedicated to his remembrance. His brilliant mind and u ...more
(milan kundera) میلان کوندرا
— 148 members
— last activity Feb 23, 2011 12:26PM
کوندرا کاوشگر هستی است ودر این راه اهمیت ونقش رمان را بس عظیم میداند او در ارزوی ان است که رمان زندگی را پیوسته روشنایی بخشد واز انسان در برابر فراموش ...more
Hraabe’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Hraabe’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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