So Many Books Quotes

Because it would be part of what I know, part of what I have to tell, that I understand something, not everything, but something, of what it is to be alone. In this way. And that there must be others who are and have always been alone. In this way.

Those for whom there was, first dimly, then more bright, then dimly again, a possibility. Which, though dimly, perhaps still exists, but which they know, have somehow always known, would never come to anything. They were never, how can I put this, going to be part of life. It is as though, going through a landscape, through the seasons, in the same general direction as everybody else, they never quite made it to the road. Through the years, humanity, like a tide of refugees or pilgrims, shoeless and in rags, or in Mercedes, stations wagons, running shoes, were traveling on, joined by others, falling by the way. And we, joined though we may be, briefly, by other strays, or by road travelers on their little detours, nonetheless never quite joined the continuing procession, of life and birth, never quite found or made it to the road.

—Renata Adler, Pitch Dark

In life, in love, otherness is sexy but unbridgeable. Art—literature, theater, visual art, opera, music—provides a framework to contemplate otherness and at least imagine a collapsing of distance.

—David Shields in How Literature Saved My Life

A myth is an attempt to reconcile an intolerable contradiction.

—David Shields in How Literature Saved My Life

Perfection is always simple, and it is always natural. Perfection is the deepest understanding and fullest expression of what is essential. Perfection is the shortest path to a goal, the simplest truth, the clearest expression. Perfection is always democratic; it is always generally accessible.

—Vaily Grossman in An Armenian Sketchbook

In the presence of this excessive beauty I felt close to panic, even to terror. The snowy mountains seemed perfect in their rounded contours, against a pale-blue sky, and their colors — vital and clean, simultaneously tender and bright like African flowers, hot even though they were born of winter sunlight on cold snow — filled the air with a music that did not infringe on the deep silence. At moments like this, it seems something improbable is about to happen, some radical transformation of people, a transformation of one’s whole internal world and of everything all around. Strangely and sadly, however, this expectation of a profound change engendered in me not only an unbearably happy excitement but also a very different feeling. I wanted this unbearable picture to fade away at once. I wanted these bright colors to yield to the calm of twilight and its dear , familiar ash: let everything be as it was. There was no need for intolerable change. Let everything remain as usual. I did not want this liberating, bone-breaking newness that was tearing me apart.

—Vasily Grossman in An Armenian Sketchbook

For a particular scene to enter into a person and become a part of their soul, it is evidently not enough that the scene be beautiful. The person also has to have something clear and beautiful present inside them. It is like a moment of shared love, of communion, of true meeting between a human being and the outer world.

—Vasily Grossman in An Armenian Sketchbook

Any struggle for national dignity and national freedom is first of all a struggle for human dignity and human freedom. Those who fight for true national freedom are fighting against mandatory typecasting, against a blind obsession with national character — whether characterized as positive or negative. The true champions of a nation’s freedom are those who reject the limitations of stereotypes and affirm the rich diversity of human nature to be found within this nation.

—Vasily Grossman in An Armenian Sketchbook

What constitutes the character of a nation is the character of many individual human beings; every national character is, in essence, simply human nature. All the world’s nations, therefore, have a great deal in common with one another.

—Vasily Grossman in An Armenian Sketchbook

I am not much of a garden designer, since plants always surprise me. I like the way they will grow their own way, not bending to my will. They will steadfastly reveal themselves regardless of the misguided plans I have for them, or quietly remove themselves if I’ve misunderstood them.

—Dorothy Field in Between Gardens

We all want to be known for the real person we are. Writing a letter to a trusted friend is the closest most of us come to leaving something of ourselves in the hands of others.

—Carol Graham Chudley in Between Gardens