“And I came to understand, in a way I never had before, that books are truly the stuff of miracles. I even dared to dream that someday, somehow, I might surround myself with books from many times and many tongues...”
― T.A. Barron, quote from The Lost Years
“As the wind swelled, my tree started to sway. Almost like a human body it swung back and around, gently at first, then more and more wildly. While the swaying intensified, so did my fears that the trunk might snap and hurl me to the ground. But in time my confidence returned. Amazed at how the tree could be at once so flexible and so sturdy, I held on tight as it bent and waved, twisted and swirled, slicing curves and arcs through the air. With each graceful swing, I felt less a creature of the land and more a part of the wind itself.
"The rain began falling, it's sound merging with the splashing river and the singing trees. Branches streamed like waterfalls of green. Tiny rivers cascaded down every trunk, twisting through moss meadows and bark canyons. All the while, I rode out the gale. I could not have felt wetter. I could not have felt freer.
"When, at last, the storm subsided, the entire world seemed newly born. Sunbeams danced on rain-washed leaves. Curling columns of mist rose from every glade. The forest's colors shown more vivid, its smells struck more fresh. And I understood, for the first time in my life, that the Earth was always being remade, that life was always being renewed. That it may have been the afternoon of this particular day, but it was still the very morning of Creation.”
― T.A. Barron, quote from The Lost Years
“My constellations are not made from the stars, but from the spaces between the stars. The dark places. The open places, where your mind can travel forever and ever.”
― T.A. Barron, quote from The Lost Years
“Comme si une douce brise s’était levée, les cheveux de Shim ont commencé à remuer. Son nez s’est mis à grossir. Puis ses oreilles. Puis le reste de sa tête, son cou, ses épaules… Ses bras ont gonflé, ainsi que sa poitrine, ses hanches, ses jambes et ses pieds. Ses vêtements s’élargissaient, grandissaient en même temps que lui, à toute vitesse… Et le miracle est arrivé : Shim a ouvert les yeux ! Plus émerveillé que nous tous, il se tâtait partout avec ses mains de plus en plus grandes. — Je grandis ! Je grandis ! s’est-il exclamé.”
― T.A. Barron, quote from The Lost Years
“In chess, as in life, your choice will make all the difference.”
― T.A. Barron, quote from The Lost Years
T.A. Barron
Born place: in Harvard, Massachusetts, The United States
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“I liked to discover connections like that, especially if they concerned Lila. I traced lines between moments and events distant from one another, I established convergences and divergences. In that period it became a daily exercise: the better off I had been in Ischia, the worse off Lila had been in the desolation of the neighborhood; the more I had suffered upon leaving the island, the happier she had become. It was as if, because of an evil spell, the joy or sorrow of one required the sorrow or joy of the other; even our physical aspect, it seemed to me, shared in that swing.”
― quote from My Brilliant Friend
“He looks like he could be taken in a fight. Not by me, but by somebody. Not anyone in Humanities, probably.”
― Richard Russo, quote from Straight Man
“Still the hottest angel I know," he murmured.
"It's beyond me how you're still on staff.”
― Alexandra Adornetto, quote from Heaven
“I wasn’t reading poetry because my aim was to work my way through English Literature in Prose A–Z.
But this was different.
I read [in, Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot]: This is one moment, / But know that another / Shall pierce you with a sudden painful joy.
I started to cry.
(…)The unfamiliar and beautiful play made things bearable that day, and the things it made bearable were another failed family—the first one was not my fault, but all adopted children blame themselves. The second failure was definitely my fault.
I was confused about sex and sexuality, and upset about the straightforward practical problems of where to live, what to eat, and how to do my A levels.
I had no one to help me, but the T.S. Eliot helped me.
So when people say that poetry is a luxury, or an option, or for the educated middle classes, or that it shouldn’t be read at school because it is irrelevant, or any of the strange and stupid things that are said about poetry and its place in our lives, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is.
It isn’t a hiding place. It is a finding place.”
― Jeanette Winterson, quote from Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
“A man never lies with more delicious languor under the influence of a passion than when he has persuaded himself that he shall subdue it to-morrow.”
― George Eliot, quote from Adam Bede
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Man and SupermanBookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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