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50 Paulo Coelho Quotes That Will Soothe Your Aching Soul

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All Quotes tagged Books(394)

Seriously, though, not buying a book until the series is complete because you're mad at some authors for not finishing theirs is a great way to ensure there won't be any more books.

— Sam Sykes, via twitter.com

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Books are the windows through which the soul looks out. A house without books is like a room without windows.

— Horace Mann, The Duty of Owning Books

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If you read a book, rate it.
If you loved a book, share it.
If you care about a book, talk it up.

I cannot tell you the strength of word-of-mouth. It is vast. You have power.

— V.E. Schwab, via twitter.com

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Books and writers give such immense and unexpected comfort, it really is something else. Grateful, as ever.

— Lisa Lucas, via twitter.com

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Any rational society would either kill me or give me my books.

— Hannibal Lector, Red Dragon

Books civilization

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My father loved The Old Man and the Sea, so I tried to love it. It left me unmoved. Mostly, I kept hoping the fish would get away.

— GQ, The 21 Most Overrated Books Ever

LOL Books Reading Classic Lit Overrated

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If you pirate a book and enjoy it, you’ll want more from that author, right? But you stole it, so the writer didn’t get paid. The publisher didn’t see sales. No more books from that author. You hurt writer, publisher, AND readers. Get it from a library if you can’t afford to buy.

— Alan Baxter, via twitter.com

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One day's exposure to mountains is better than cartloads of books. See how willingly Nature poses herself upon photographers' plates. No earthly chemicals are so sensitive as those of the human soul.

— John Muir, John of the Mountains: The Unpublished Journals of John Muir,

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These writers, and their works, inspire us to keep pushing towards a truly intersectional, inclusive feminism that can truly topple the patriarchy once and for all.

— The Rumpus, What to Read When You Want to Celebrate Feminism

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Books make up no small part of human happiness.

— Frederick the Great, via www.bartleby.com

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My books are excellent man repellent.

— Roxane Gay, Roxane Gay's books are man repellent

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One of the great epiphanies of my lifetime was realizing that I disliked so many female characters because they were created by men who didn’t like women.

— Rainbow Rowell, via twitter.com

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Books feed and cure and chortle and collide.

— Gwendolyn Brooks, Selected Poems

Poetry Books Reading beauty Beautiful Words

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Ew, books are gross.

— Gretchen Cutler (Aya Cash), You're the Worst, Season 3: The Last Sunday Funday

Anti-Reading Illiteracy Gross Books

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Like any good pie, some revenge plots rise above the rest.

— Kim Savage, Reading With A Vengeance — 11 YA Books About Revenge

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If I had my life to live over again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week.

— Charles Darwin, Life and Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume 1: By Charles Darwin - Illustrated

Reading Importance of Reading Books

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Writers aren’t (always) creating Easter egg hunts for readers, hiding references for them to find. But generally, you can assume that if you DO find something, it was put there on purpose for you.

— Celeste Ng, via twitter.com

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Books are often far more than just books.

— Roxane Gay, Bad Feminist: Essays

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Don’t label yourself a bad reader. You have a normal condition called “brain chatter” and I have found the best way to settle my brain down and pay attention to the text is to simply acknowledge when my brain is being extra noisy and has lots to “say” about what it’s reading. I literally tell my brain to quiet down and let me read.

— Stephanie St.Claire, How to Read One Book a Week

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I honestly had no fucking clue what I was doing, I just made it up as I went along.

— Amy Kaufman, 'There's Something They Want to Hide': A Conversation With Bachelor Nation Author Amy Kaufman

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I prefer to get my news from books.

— Ryan Holiday, What is your preferred news source?

News Media Books Quote of the Moment

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Books are like seeds: they come to life when you read them & grow spines & leaves. I need trees around me as I need books around me, so building bookshelves is something like planting trees.

— Roger Deakin, Notes From Walnut Tree Farm

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Libraries are time-machines. Libraries are wildwoods. Libraries are galaxies. Libraries are magic portals into learning & dreaming. Libraries are vital for social mobility.

— Robert Macfarlane, via twitter.com

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Read more books, I guess, is what I’m trying to say. Read stories about other people, other emotions. Get emotions that you can’t get from daily life just now.

— Sam Sykes, via twitter.com

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The only updates you need to send an agent reading your query is if you've received an offer of representation or the Nobel Prize. Everything else irrelevant.

— Kate McKean, via twitter.com

Writing Books publishing a book Book Publishing Book Publishing Tips publishing industry finding an agent querying your manuscript manuscript

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Books break the shackles of time, proof that humans can work magic.

— Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Books Inspiring Magic

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Nothing is more impotent than an unread library.

— John Waters, Role Models

Knowledge Books

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Being rich is not about how much money you have or how many homes you own; it’s the freedom to buy any book you want without looking at the price and wondering if you can afford it.

— John Waters, Role Models

Wealth Knowledge Books

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If the 1st Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.

— Thurgood Marshall, via thurgoodmarshall.com

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DO read books with compelling characters whose choices drive the plot.

DON’T tape hornet nests to your hands and call yourself Hornethands Jones.

— Sam Sykes, via twitter.com

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I feel like 'fun' is frequently dismissed as a quality of a book, usually played down as escapism or, usually, just as a side note. Few people actually talk about what a fun book means.

For me, it’s never meant escapism. 'Fun' means joy. It means the prose is exciting, the characters are great, the action is delightful. All of this translates to reader investment.

People who sneer at the concept of a fun book as mindless escapism may understand reader investment, but they rarely understand that you have to earn it.

That’s not to say fun is the ONLY way to earn reader investment. But it’s a good way. And it’s harder to do than it looks. Hence why there is a not insignificant number of dry, joyless fantasy novels out there.

— Sam Sykes, via twitter.com

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I never bailed on a book when I was a kid. Like, once I started, I was along for the ride. And I don't remember thinking critically along the way.

— Rainbow Rowell, via twitter.com

Books Reading books bailing books Bookworm

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You know what would make a great coffee table book? A coffee table book about coffee tables! Get it?

— Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards), Seinfeld, Season 5: The Cigar Store Indian

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What is this obsession people have with books? They put them in their houses—like they're trophies. What do you need it for after you read it?

— Jerry Seinfeld (Jerry Seinfeld), Seinfeld, Season 2: The Ex-Girlfriend

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I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

— Anna Quindlen, Public & Private; Enough Bookshelves

Bookshelves Books Books As Decor Decorating With Books Quote of the Moment

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Books can be as long as they need to be. A tweet should be short and sweet.

— Stephen King, via twitter.com

Books Tweet Twitter Millennial

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That’s why I write the kind of books I do! To help girls know they have worth, and will be okay in the end - like me!

— Meg Cabot, via twitter.com

Writer's Truth Writing Books Feminist feminism Women Empowerment

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...her dearest friends are characters in books.

— Sarah J. Maas, Heir of Fire (Throne of Glass)

Books Stories books' characters characters in a story Book Lover Bookworm

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No. I can survive well enough on my own— if given the proper reading material.

— Celaena Sardothien, Throne of Glass

Reading Books Knowledge Intellect

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Book sales are important because that’s how writers try to make a living. But no one can or should buy every book. Libraries are vital.

— Roxane Gay, via twitter.com

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To me the best books are the ones that make me SO ANGRY because like what gives you the right to write this well, you know? Beautiful sentences make me want to throw books and that's how I know the writer is killing it.

Like, this may be just me because I write, but when I read so called "good" writing that soothes me, I later realize it was maybe just mediocre and the soothing feeling I felt deep down was calm because I figured out how it worked. The writing that makes me burn inside is the real shit

— rachel syme, via Twitter

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Yes, books are spendy. BORROW IT FROM A LIBRARY. Libraries buy more copies if they're in demand. Ta-da! Paper trail, happy publishers.

— Maggie Stiefvater, via Twitter

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I read to see myself in other people's lives.

— Stephen Sondheim, Passion

Reading Books People Life Perspective Seeing Differently

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Kath perfectly depicts how we want all of our mornings to start — with a good book that encourages our hearts, and a warm cup of frothy coffee.

— Bianca Sparacino, 17 Aesthetically-Pleasing Bookstagram Photos From 2017

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I was attending the American Society of Animal Science meetings when the flood occurred. I first learned about it when I read about it on the front page of USA Today, a national newspaper. I grieved for the "dead" books, the same way most people grieve for a dead relative. The destruction of books upset me because "thoughts died." Even though most of the books are still in other libraries, there are many people at the (Colorado State) university who will never read them. To me, Shakespeare lives if we keep performing his plays. He dies, when we stop performing them. I am my work. If the livestock industry continues to use equipment I have designed, then my "thoughts live" and my life has meaning. If my efforts to improve the treatment of cattle and pigs make real improvements in the world, then life is meaningful.

— Temple Grandin, via en.wikiquote.org

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I am on a curiosity voyage, and I need my paddles to travel. These books are my paddles. I need my paddles!

— Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo), Stranger Things, Season 2: Chapter Three: The Pollywog

Books Curiosity Learning

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Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.

— John Wesley, Letter to Joseph Benson

Books Reading Knowledge Love

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If you have read this whole thing, I hope you have plenty of time. You could have been reading the stories.

— John D. Macdonald, Night Shift

Good writing Books Stories

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As a youngster I was a great dreamer, reading many books of adventure and walking lonely miles with my head in the clouds.

— Edmund Hillary, View from the Summit: The Remarkable Memoir by the First Person to Conquer Everest

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I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read.

— Phillip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

Literature Ideas Creativity Books

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Their house had real hard-cover books in it, and you often saw them lying open on the sofa, the words still warm from being read.

— David Sedaris, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls

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Real life doesn’t have many happy endings. Why shouldn’t books make up the difference?

— Scott Westerfeld, Afterworlds

Life Perspective Books

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Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic.

— Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady

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I read a lot. I love books. If they came in a bottle, I’d be a drunk too.

— Alyxandra Harvey, Bleeding Hearts (Drake Chronicles)

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Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors, played by somebody I do not know.

— John Keats, Selected Letters of John Keats: Revised Edition

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When life wears us down, great fiction gives us back our human shape.

— Kevin Hartnett, Reading 1Q84: The Case for Fiction in a Busy Life

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I believe we have an obligation to read for pleasure, in private and in public places. If we read for pleasure, if others see us reading, then we learn, we exercise our imaginations. We show others that reading is a good thing.

— Neil Gaiman, Neil Gaiman: Why our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming

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Every word leaves a memory in your heart – and it the sum of these memories that form sentences, paragraphs, books.

— Paulo Coelho, The act of writing – the reader

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In any case, rather like priests who have forgotten the meaning of the prayers they chant, we shall go on for quite a long time talking of books and writing books, pretending all the while not to notice that the church is empty and the parishioners have gone elsewhere to attend other gods, perhaps in silence or with new words.

— Gore Vidal, Matters of Fact and of Fiction

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Lonely children often have imaginary playmates but I was never lonely; rather, I was solitary, and wanted no company at all other than books and movies, and my own imagination.

— Gore Vidal, Screening History

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They say in every library there is a single book that can answer the question that burns like a fire in the mind.

— Lemony Snicket, "Who Could That Be at This Hour?" (All the Wrong Questions)

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How marvelous books are, crossing worlds and centuries, defeating ignorance and, finally, cruel time itself.

— Gore Vidal, Julian

Books Places Time Ignorance

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Books don’t change the world, people change the world, books only change people.

— Mario Quintana, A quote by Mario Quintana

Books People human Change Making A Difference

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For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.

— John Milton, Areopagitica

Books Life Soul Intellect

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Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

— Alberto Manguel, A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books

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I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.

— Robert Louis Stevenson, Essays By Robert Louis Stevenson

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I often hear people say that they read to escape reality, but I believe that what they’re really doing is reading to find reason for hope, to find strength. While a bad book leaves readers with a sense of hopelessness and despair, a good novel, through stories of values realized, of wrongs righted, can bring to readers a connection to the wonder of life. A good novel shows how life can and ought to be lived. It not only entertains but energizes and uplifts readers.

— Terry Goodkind, via GoodReads

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There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.

— Beatrix Potter, How Not To Write A Book: An insider’s guide to successful writing and publishing

Writing Books Story Words Imagination Adventure

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She had always wanted words, she loved them; grew up on them. Words gave her clarity, brought reason, shape.

— Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient

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Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer's work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might never have seen in himself without this book. The reader's recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book's truth.

— Marcel Proust, Time Regained

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The magical thing about Stephen King is he just keeps writing.

— Caroline Kepnes, How Stephen King Scared a Generation of Storytellers Into Existence

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I’ve always had trouble with the notion of ‘respectable’ work. I understand the human need to categorize, but I love the reality that he’s in his own stratosphere.

— Caroline Kepnes, How Stephen King Scared a Generation of Storytellers Into Existence

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What he created shaped us.

— Nikolaj Arcel, How Stephen King Scared a Generation of Storytellers Into Existence

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I think that book has helped so many of us stick to our guns and keep at it. That’s a book that was so empowering. He was so eloquent and incisive in that book. Here he is, larger-than-life Stephen King, and yet there he is across from you, telling you to chill out and work.

— Caroline Kepnes, How Stephen King Scared a Generation of Storytellers Into Existence

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The characters felt real, the world felt like our own, and there was no safety net — you weren’t safe in the daylight, your family could turn on you, and children weren’t safe from the monster. In fact, sometimes they were its favorite food.

— Mike Flanagan, How Stephen King Scared a Generation of Storytellers Into Existence

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My jaw hit the floor at the realization that stories like The Shining or The Dead Zone or those from Night Shift could actually exist. Characters from and of our world faced with horrors and challenges from somewhere else.

— J.J. Abrams, How Stephen King Scared a Generation of Storytellers Into Existence

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The one thing I regret is that I will never have time to read all the books I want to read.

— Françoise Sagan, French literary icon Sagan dies

Regret Books Not enough time Reading books Bibliophile Desire

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This is how you read a novel: you inhale the experience. So start breathing.

— Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books

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I think it’s the books that you read when you’re young that live with you forever.

— J. K. Rowling, A quote by J.K. Rowling

Books Lovers of Books wandering Imagination

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Throughout the years I’ve had many careers, but even when I was working a million jobs to make ends meet, I always made time to write and haunt the library — I could not stop doing either.

— Warren Adler, Never Let Go of a Childhood Dream

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Some books you read. Some books you enjoy. But some books just swallow you up, heart and soul.

— Joanne Harris, Joanne Harris on Tumblr

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That’s the beauty of books. In so many ways, they never really end.

— Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

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I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.

— Elie Wiesel, Night

Books Destiny Sorrow Joy

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I guess that’s the beauty of books. When they finish they don’t really finish.

— Markus Zusak, A quote by Markus Zusak

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People who fall in love with books never really stop falling.

— Rainbow Rowell, Rainbow Rowell Quote

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And I’m very much in favour of reading. These are very intense experiences of the mind which many of the new generation do not have any more. They read little snippets on Twitter and see little snippets of films on YouTube. And they are pretty much lost, because they do not read, and they are not conceptually thinking any more.

— Werner Herzog, Werner Herzog interview: the unlikely guru

Books Millennials

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Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you.

— Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind

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You don’t have to change the world or find your one true purpose to lead a meaningful life. A good life is a life of goodness — and that’s something anyone can aspire to, no matter their dreams or circumstances.

— Emily Esfahani Smith, You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.

It Starts With Individuals The Power of Small Impact Ideals

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Most young adults won’t achieve the idealistic goals they’ve set for themselves. They won’t become the next Mark Zuckerberg. They won’t have obituaries that run in newspapers like this one. But that doesn’t mean their lives will lack significance and worth. We all have a circle of people whose lives we can touch and improve — and we can find our meaning in that.

— Emily Esfahani Smith, You’ll Never Be Famous — And That’s O.K.

It Starts With Individuals The Power of Small Impact Ideals

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Books make me feel safe. Books make me feel normal.

— Gary Paulsen, Notes from the Dog

Books Safe haven Safe Place Escapism Bibliophile

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I too often feel like a person I know nothing about.

— John Ashbery, John Ashbery, the Gift of Quiet Moments

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I feel the carousel starting slowly
And going faster and faster: desk, papers, books,
Photographs of friends, the window and the trees,
Merging into one neutral band that surrounds
Me on all sides, everywhere I look.
And I cannot explain the action of leveling,
Why it should all boil down to one
Uniform substance, a magma of interiors.

— John Ashbery, John Ashbery, the Gift of Quiet Moments

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Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves.

— Jeremy Collier, via GoodReads

Books Reading love for reading reading heals Book Lovers book worms Solitude Inspirational

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Fools admire everything in an author of reputation. For my part, I read only to please myself. I like only that which serves my purpose.

— Voltaire, Candide

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Reading was like a drug, a dope. The novels created moods in which I lived for days.

— Richard Wright, Black Boy

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He loved books; books are cold but safe friends.

— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

Books Book Lover Book Worm

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The first time, he had wondered why she liked books so much, and if it had anything to do with why he liked spaceships. Because they could take you somewhere far, far away.

— Marissa Meyer, Stars Above

Books Imagination

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His books were the closest thing he had to furniture and he lived in them the way other men live in easy chairs.

— Laura Hillenbrand, Seabiscuit: An American Legend

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The best book, like the best speech, will do it all - make us laugh, think, cry and cheer - preferably in that order.

— Madeleine Albright, Madeleine Albright

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I fell in love with books. Some people find beauty in music, some in painting, some in landscape, but I find it in words. By beauty, I mean the feeling you have suddenly glimpsed another world, or looked into a portal that reveals a kind of magic or romance out of which the world has been constructed, a feeling there is something more than the mundane, and a reason for our plodding.

— Donald Miller, To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing Up Without a Father

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