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“It’s not bad people I fear so much as good people. When a person is sure that he is good, he is nearly hopeless; he gets cruel- he believes in punishment.”
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―
“It falls to the lot of even the most glorious flags to be thrown in the mud. Glory, what men call glory, is often thick with mud.”
― The Skin
― The Skin
“During this journey it was as if he again thought over his whole life and reached the same old comforting and hopeless conclusion: that there was no need for him to start anything, that he had to live out his life without doing evil, without anxiety, and without wishing for anything.”
― War and Peace
― War and Peace
“It's like squeezing tripe: nothing comes out,' he said, meaning the Colasberna brothers, their partners, the town in general and Sicily as a whole.”
― The Day of the Owl
― The Day of the Owl
“The only institution in the Sicilian conscience that really counts is the family; counts, that is to say, more as a dramatic juridical contract or bond than as a natural association based on affection. The family is the Sicilians’ State. The State, as it is for us, is extraneous to them, merely a de facto entity based on force; an entity imposing taxes, military service, war, police. Within the family institution the Sicilian can cross the frontier of his own natural tragic solitude and fit into a communal life where relationships are governed by hair-splitting contractual ties. To ask him to cross the frontier between family and State would be too much. In imagination he may be carried away by the idea of the State and may even rise to being Prime Minister; but the precise and definite code of his rights and duties will remain within the family, whence the step towards victorious solitude is shorter.”
― The Day of the Owl
― The Day of the Owl
2015 Reading Challenge [Closed]
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— last activity Apr 16, 2023 10:38AM
Our challenge is based of the Popsugar's Reading Challenge for 2015. Each week, the members read the book of their choice in the right category. This ...more
Pulp Fiction
— 1938 members
— last activity Jun 25, 2026 08:18AM
Hard Boiled detective novels, noir, and great crime novels (old and new)
John’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at John’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
67,231 books
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4,998 friends
3,158 books
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82 friends
503 books
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40 friends
427 books
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774 friends
1,087 books
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100 friends
669 books
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64 friends
138 books
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93 friends
2,364 books
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85 friends
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