Telling yourself that something does not matter is one of the loneliest things you can do, because you only say it, of course, about things that matter very much. But often, and this is the lonely part, they only matter to you.
Countless writers express countless ideas on so many bits of paper, and at some unknown moment some specific book, even some specific sentence, will be the right one for the right person. We never know when some scrap of literature will have its finest hour.
Nobody knows anything at all. We have no idea what is happening. We are all bewildered. Someone may say that they understand something, to ourselves or to others, but they are wrong, or guessing, or making it up.
Remember what you learned, years ago: You’re never sorry you brought a book.
When you apologize, it is a bit like reaching the last page of a book. The book is still there, with your wicked deed inside, but at least it is closed and put on a shelf. Every single thing I ought to have apologized for, and didn’t, is like a book lying open and unfinished.
It is difficult for me to exaggerate how much I love a library.
All good writing is like this. It is why a favorite book feels like an old friend and a new acquaintance at the same time, and the reason a favorite author can be a familiar figure and a mysterious stranger all at once.
A person who spends eight years learning how to make a cake will probably make you a good cake, but a person who spends eight years as an aviator and a tailor and a math tutor and a trainer of bears in the circus will probably kill you in a plane he is flying very badly while wearing a shirt that doesn’t fit and fighting off an ill-behaved bear, all the while insisting that seven times six is harmonica.
I love a library. Just to walk inside one, and to breathe in a room where so much literature has been gathered, is such a powerful feeling that it often brings a tear to my eye, although that could also be my mild allergy to dust.
Life has so many surprises that the only real surprise in life is when nothing surprising happens.
Perhaps you are one of us too, investigating your life and thinking about the world, always feeling native to nowhere. We put on disguises sometimes, to pose as people we are not, to hide, or to blend in, or just to see what will happen, hoping that our secrets will never be found out.
We must try, all of us, a lot of the time, our best, and we must keep trying. We do not understand anything but we should try our best to understand each other.
The human body is about 60% water- more than half of each and every one of us. Being a body of water is something you can say about absolutely anyone. So if you are ever asked what a certain person is like and you cannot think of anything nice to say, you can just reply “they’re mostly water.
I can compare sadness to a car because both are quite capable of running me over.
Some book of mine – this book of philosophy, for example – may sit ignored and lonely on a high shelf, but then someday a reader will walk into a library and spot the spine of the book they have been waiting for, and they will pluck my book off the shelf and use it to stand on, to reach the book they are excited to read.
I want to be friends with people who are honest and interesting, generous but not ridiculous, thoughtful but who don’t have irritating voices.
I get sad, when I think of my own wicked acts, although I supposed if I weren’t sad about them it would mean I didn’t care. I’m glad that I care, so I’m a little happy that I’m sad.
I always feel hopeful when I step into a park. When a city or town sets aside a piece of land for public relaxation, it is a sign that someone is thinking about the happiness of someone else, that some people are trimming grass and sweeping pathways just so other people can have picnics and take walks or perhaps just sit and think.
If I were making up a story, I would have it gray and miserable outside, but it was sunny and miserable instead, glaringly bright and bitterly cold, as if the sky could not decide if it was in a good mood or would spend all day growling. I didn’t mind this kind of weather, weather that cannot make up its mind, because I am often the same way, or at least I think I am. I don’t know.
You want friends who choose you, because they find you charming and fascinating, rather than just each and every person who talks through your door.