“To write is to forget. Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life. Music soothes, the visual arts exhilarates, the performing arts (such as acting and dance) entertain. Literature, however, retreats from life by turning in into slumber. The other arts make no such retreat— some because they use visible and hence vital formulas, others because they live from human life itself.
This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.”
― The Book of Disquiet
This isn't the case with literature. Literature simulates life. A novel is a story of what never was, a play is a novel without narration. A poem is the expression of ideas or feelings a language no one uses, because no one talks in verse.”
― The Book of Disquiet
“I Know, I Alone
I know, I alone
How much it hurts, this heart
With no faith nor law
Nor melody nor thought.
Only I, only I
And none of this can I say
Because feeling is like the sky -
Seen, nothing in it to see.”
―
I know, I alone
How much it hurts, this heart
With no faith nor law
Nor melody nor thought.
Only I, only I
And none of this can I say
Because feeling is like the sky -
Seen, nothing in it to see.”
―
“If I write what I feel, it's to reduce the fever of feeling. What I confess is unimportant, because everything is unimportant.”
― The Book of Disquiet
― The Book of Disquiet
“It has been said, 'time heals all wounds.' I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.”
―
―
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”
― A Dance with Dragons
― A Dance with Dragons
Read a book from each country
— 984 members
— last activity Oct 30, 2025 05:18PM
I thought this would be a good place to collect recommendations for books from various countries. I don't have a formal goal to read a book from each ...more
Jana’s 2025 Year in Books
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