Bethany

“Perdu wanted Anna to feel that she was in a nest. He wanted her to sense the boundless possibilities offered by books. They would always be enough. They would never stop loving their readers. They were a fixed point in an otherwise unpredictable world. In life. In love. After death.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“I think I learned all my feelings from books. In them I loved and laughed and found out more than in my whole non-reading life.”
― Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop

“A librarian remembers the particular scent of glue and dust, and if we’re so lucky—and I was—the smell of parchment, a quiet tanginess, softer than wood pulp or cotton rag. We would bury ourselves in books until flesh and paper became one and ink and blood at last ran together.”
― Erika Swyler, The Book of Speculation

“We carry our families like anchors, rooting us in storms, making sure we never drift from where and who we are. We carry our families within us the way we carry our breath underwater, keeping us afloat, keeping us alive. I’ve been lifting anchors since I was eighteen. I’ve been holding my breath since before I was born.”
― Erika Swyler, The Book of Speculation