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William Owen

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William’s Bookshelves

to-read‎ (1073)
currently-reading‎ (18)
read‎ (1131)
did-not-finish‎ (0)
essential‎ (100)
poetry‎ (75)
graphic-novel‎ (53)

mfa-reading-list‎ (44)
book-clubbin‎ (38)
great-endings‎ (31)
book-club-sidepiece‎ (28)
short-stories‎ (18)
childhood-favorites‎ (11)
re-read‎ (11)

policy‎ (7)
marvel-movie-comics‎ (6)
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fbc‎ (3)
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mythology‎ (2)
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novella‎ (1)
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William is Currently Reading

William Owen is currently reading

The History of Sound

by Ben Shattuck (Goodreads Author)

bookshelves: book-clubbin, currently-reading

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Apr 30, 2026 08:59AM

William Owen is currently reading

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Vol. 4

by Hayao Miyazaki

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 07, 2026 08:55AM

William Owen is currently reading

One Piece, Volume 6: The Oath

by Eiichiro Oda

bookshelves: currently-reading

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Jan 07, 2026 08:51AM

See all 18 books that William is reading…

William’s Quotes

“There is no present or future-only the past, happening over and over again-now.”
― Eugene O'Neill, A Moon for the Misbegotten

tags: past, time

206 likes

“Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction and I dont want to confront him. I know he's real. I have seen his work. I walked in front of those eyes once. I wont do it again. I wont push my chips forward and stand up and go out to meet him. It aint just bein older. I wish that it was. I cant say that it's even what you are willin to do. Because I always knew that you had to be willin to die to even do this job. That was always true. Not to sound glorious about it or nothin but you do. If you aint they'll know it. They'll see it in a heartbeat. I think it is more like what you are willin to become. And I think a man would have to put his soul at hazard. And I wont do that.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

61 likes

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

tags: books, mind

16636 likes

“I concluded that my mind was so ordinary, which is to say empty, that I could never be anything but a reasonably good camera.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard

8 likes

“No man ever stood the lower in my estimation for having a patch in his clothes: yet I am sure that there is greater anxiety, commonly, to have fashionable, or at least clean and unpatched clothes, than to have a sound conscience.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden or, Life in the Woods

29 likes

More of William’s quotes…

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William’s Groups

Rothfussians — 4534 members — last activity May 03, 2026 06:18PM
Patrick Rothfuss needs a goodreads.com group! For fantasy fans and anyone that appreciates beautifully written books. Discuss The Name of the Wind, T ...more

¡ POETRY ! — 22522 members — last activity May 20, 2026 01:47PM
No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read No pretensions: just poetry. Stop by, recommend books, offer up poems (excerpted), tempt us, taunt us, tell us what to read and where to go (to read it!) Goodreads honors wordsmiths: poets and poetry promoted and prompted here. ~~~ "Poetry is the synthesis of hyacinths and biscuits." -- Carl Sandburg “God has a brown voice, as soft and full as beer.” —Anne Sexton On Clouds – “…what primitive tastes the ancients must have had if their poets were inspired by those absurd, untidy clumps of mist, idiotically jostling one another about…” —Yevgeny Zamyatin “If the poet wants to be a poet, the poet must force the poet to revise. If the poet doesn’t wish to revise, let the poet abandon poetry and take up stamp-collecting or real estate.” —Donald Hall “Poetry is a rich, full-bodied whistle, cracked ice crunching in pails, the night that numbs the leaf, the duel of two nightingales, the sweet pea that has run wild, Creation’s tears in shoulder blades.” —Boris Pasternak “Wanted: a needle swift enough to sew this poem into a blanket.” —Charles Simic “Language is a cracked kettle on which we beat out tunes for bears to dance to, while all the time we long to move the stars to pity.” —Gustave Flaubert “Poetry is not an expression of the party line. It’s that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public, that’s what the poet does.” —Allen Ginsberg. ~~~~~ Amy King, Moderator Amy King is the recipient of the 2015 Winner of the WNBA Award (Women’s National Book Association). Her latest collection, The Missing Museum, is a winner of the 2015 Tarpaulin Sky Book Prize. She serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts and is co-editing with Heidi Lynn Staples the anthology, Big Energy Poets of the Anthropocene: When Ecopoets Think Climate Change. She is also co-editing the anthology, Bettering American Poetry 2015, and is an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at SUNY Nassau Community College. ...more

PICADOR — 21 members — last activity May 12, 2008 07:07AM
Books published by PICADOR USA.

Warren Ellis: Q&A Experiment — 461 members — last activity Jan 08, 2014 09:42AM
This is a group for fans of Warren Ellis. Join us on Thursday, August 15th for a special discussion with author Warren Ellis! Warren will be discuss ...more