“How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.”
― Gift from the Sea
― Gift from the Sea
“Some people are your family no matter when you find them, and some people are not, even if you are laid, still wet and crumpled, in their arms.”
― Love Invents Us
― Love Invents Us
“When it comes to love, there are a million theories to explain it. But when it comes to love stories, things are simpler. A love story can never be about full posession. The happy marriage, the requited love, the desire that never dims-- these are lucky eventualities but they aren't love stories. Love stories depend on disappointment, on unequal births and feuding families, on matrimonial boredom and at least one cold heart. Love stories, nearly without exception, give love a bad name.”
― My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro
― My Mistress's Sparrow is Dead: Great Love Stories, from Chekhov to Munro
“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don't have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
― A Man Without a Country
― A Man Without a Country
Emily’s 2025 Year in Books
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