#literature

"In omnibus requiem quaesivi, et nusquam inveni nisi in angulo cum libro.(Everywhere I have sought peace and not found it, except in a corner with a book.)"

"Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude."

"You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem seem to see before you, your thoughts are caught up in the story, dallying with the details or following the course of the plot, you enter into characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes."

"Hope without love is hopeless."

"My soul is in the sky."

"Words are magic. They have the power to hurt and to heal, and even withholding them has the power to hurt and to heal. What else has as much potency in its absence and can do without doing? What I mean is, even when you don’t say anything, you are communicating as effectively as if you’d spoken."

"Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together."

"Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next. Books save lives."

"Let those who want to save the world if you can get to see it clear and as a whole. Then any part you make will represent the whole if it's made truly. The thing to do is work and learn to make it."

"I regained my soul through literature after those times I'd lost it to wild-eyed gypsy girls on the European streets."

"A letter Lewis wrote reveals an 18-year-old with the energy of a schoolboy and the tastes of an octogenarian."

"It's not all bad. Heightened self-consciousness, apartness, an inability to join in, physical shame and self-loathing—they are not all bad. Those devils have been my angels. Without them I would never have disappeared into language, literature, the mind, laughter and all the mad intensities that made and unmade me."

"Be aware of the high notes, of the blissful faces and their soft messages, and listen for the silent message of a highly decorated gift."

"I believe that today more than ever a book should be sought after even if it has only one great page in it. We must search for fragments, splinters, toenails, anything that has ore in it, anything that is capable of resuscitating the body and the soul."

"You never know who you're inspiring or uninspiring. People notice more than you think."

"Even if you are alone you wage war with yourself."

"Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them."

"Mother used to say that however miserable one is, there’s always something to be thankful for. And each morning, when the sky brightened and light began to flood my cell, I agreed with her."

"Color is the overpowering of black; white – the final victory over black."

"Sleep is death enjoyed."