“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
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“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
“Now, now my good man, this is no time to be making enemies."
(Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)”
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(Voltaire on his deathbed in response to a priest asking him that he renounce Satan.)”
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“I think that if I ever have kids, and they are upset, I won't tell them that people are starving in China or anything like that because it wouldn't change the fact that they were upset. And even if somebody else has it much worse, that doesn't really change the fact that you have what you have.”
― The Perks of Being a Wallflower
― The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Catarina’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Catarina’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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