“The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.”
― Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
― Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
“I wish I had a hundred years, she said, very quietly. A hundred years I could give to you.”
― A Monster Calls
― A Monster Calls
“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn't already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”
― The Book Thief
― The Book Thief
“When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder.
Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
― Everything Is Illuminated
Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calendar that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from a chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
― Everything Is Illuminated
“I was a terrible believer in things,but I was also a terrible nonbeliever in things. I was as searching as I was skeptical. I didn't know where to put my faith,or if there was such a place,or even what the word faith meant, in all of it's complexity. Everything seemed to be possibly potent and possibly fake.”
― Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
― Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Chantal’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Chantal’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Children's, Classics, Contemporary, Fiction, Memoir, Music, Mystery, Non-fiction, Psychology, Romance, Science, Self help, Travel, and Young-adult
Polls voted on by Chantal
Lists liked by Chantal















