Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.
One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.′ To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: ‘This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.
I think of literature,′ she wrote, ’as a vast country to the far borders of which I am journeying but will never reach. And I have started to late. I will never catch up.
Never at my best when at my best behaviour.
How old does one have to be still to say tits?
The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.
Books are not about passing time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.
Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.
What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
That’s a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.
History is a commentary on the various and continuing incapabilities of men. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket.
A bookshelf is as particular to its owner as are his or her clothes; a personality is stamped on a library just as a shoe is shaped by the foot.
If you find yourself born in Barnsley and then set your sights on being Virginia Woolf it is not going to be roses all the way.
I’m all in favour of free expression provided it’s kept rigidly under control.
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.