"literature is my utopia." - helen keller
"She was addicted to literature like some people were addicted to heroin."
— ~Allie Burke (via amandaonwriting)
(via fuckyeahreading)
"Literature, real literature, must not be gulped down like some potion which may be good for the heart or good for the brain—the brain, that stomach of the soul. Literature must be taken and broken to bits, pulled apart, squashed—then its lovely reek will be smelt in the hollow of the palm, it will be munched and rolled upon the tongue with relish; then, and only then, its rare flavor will be appreciated at its true worth and the broken and crushed parts will again come together in your mind and disclose the beauty of a unity to which you have contributed something of your own blood."
— Vladimir Nabokov (via thebookishdark)
(Source: how-novelistic, via davesoldebookshop)
"Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become."
— C.S. Lewis (via bookaddict24-7)
(via amazinglinesinbooks)
“…literature was the only religion her father practiced, when a book fell on the floor he kissed it, when he was done with a book he tried to give it away to someone who would love it.” - Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
I kiss my books also.
(via relatedtobooks)
“What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.”
—E.M. Forster
"Yeah, once you start talking about all-time classic books, they almost invariably have a level of depth and nuance that goes way beyond mere idealization. In fact, quite a few of the novels we cover dramatize the dangers of having rose-colored glasses on (“Great Expectations,” “The Magic Mountain,” “Remembrance of Things Past,” etc.), so I’d say great literature actually helps you keep from living only in dreams."
— Jack Murnighan, co-author with Maura Kelly of Much Ado About Loving in Dating tips from Dickens, Austen and Tolstoy - Books - Salon.com (via housingworksbookstore)
(via housingworksbookstore)
"Depend upon it, after all, Thomas, Literature is the most noble of professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path. I shall be a litterateur, at least, all my life;"
— Edgar Allan Poe, from a letter to F. W. Thomas dated February 14, 1849 (via bookoasis)
Passage home? Never.
— The Odyssey, Book 5, Homer (trans. Robert Fagles)
(from Lit by Mary Karr)Mary Karr will be here with Elizabeth Wurtzel and Alan Kaufman on Wednesday, January 18.
"Literature is not exhaustible, for the sufficient and simple reason that no single book is."
— Jorge Luis Borges, Labyrinths (via bookoasis)
