#literature

When I listen to you, God when I do what you ask me to, I am like a tree planted by a river, a tree full of fruit with leaves that are always green. Ps 1(paraphrased) ↗

— Marie-Helene Delval

#inspirational #prayer #inspirational

That’s the thing about living vicariously; it’s so much faster than actual living. ↗

— Audrey Niffenegger

#life #life-quotes #literature #living #quotes

If you could have walked on the planet before humans lived here, maybe the Ivory Coast would have seemed more beautiful than La Côte d'Azur. ↗

— Dejan Stojanovic

#dejan-stojanovic #earth #french-riviera #humans #ivory-coast

The pursuit of truth, not of facts, is the business of fiction. ↗

— Oakley Hall

#literature #philosophy #truth #business

Books may not change our suffering, books may not protect us from evil, books may not tell us what is good or what is beautiful, and they will certainly not shield us from the common fate of the grave. But books grant us myriad possibilities: the possibility of change, the possibility of illumination. ↗

— Alberto Manguel

#literature #reading #beauty

The book was in her lap; she had read no further. The power to change one’s life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers. She was excited, filled with strength. The polished sentences had arrived, it seemed, like so many other things, at just the right time. How can we imagine what our lives should be without the illumination of the lives of others? ↗

— James Salter

#literature #reading #words #change

Literature simply becomes richer after you've been fired, rejected, stranded, or had to change a few midnight diapers. ↗

— Christian Bauman

#books #literature #change

There is nothing sacred about literature, it is damned from one end to the other. There is nothing in literature but change and change is mockery. I'll write whatever I damn please, whenever I damn please and as I damn please and it'll be good if the authentic spirit of change is on it. ↗

— William Carlos Williams

#change

It is difficult when reading the description of certain fictional characters not at the same time to imagine the real-life acquaintances who they most closely, if often unexpectedly, resemble. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#literature #philosophy-of-life #change

Flannery O'Connor, in a note to the editor of "Wise Blood" that pertained to changes he wanted to make, wrote "Perhaps I am prematurely arrogant . . . ↗

— Flannery O'Connor

#southern-writers #change