“How could we let them get away with it for so long?” But the question, of course, contained its own answer: We let them get away with it. Power is more often surrendered than seized." -- from 'Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir' by John Banville
#BookQuote
"It is a May morning of luminous loveliness. The sunlight glows through a delicate muslin mist, the soft air is fragrant with the smell of lilac, and out over the tawny reaches of Sandymount strand, where Stephen Dedalus once trod upon seaspawn and seawrack while seeking myopically to make out the signatures of all the things he was sent there to read, the pale sky shines and shimmers like the inner skin of a vast soap bubble." -- from 'Time Pieces: A Dublin Memoir' by John Banville
Kleinkariert steht niemandem gut. ✋ Dieses Zitat aus »Lost Bastards« sitzt einfach. Es erinnert uns daran, dass Souveränität dort beginnt, wo das Ego aufhört. Habt ihr das Buch schon gelesen? #buchsky #booksky #books #BookQuote #zitat
“Maybe that’s why I tend to equate physical beauty with qualities with which it has absolutely nothing to do. I see a pretty mouth or a moody pair of eyes and imagine all sorts of deep affinities, private kinships. Never mind that half a dozen jerks are clustered round the same person, just because they’ve been duped by the same pair of eyes.” — *[Francis] “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt*
#The-Secret-History #Donna-Tartt #book-quote #literature #quotes #dark-academia #perception #beauty #affinity #culture #intellectualism #read-books #support-your-local-library #be-curious
"Then she opens the book like she’s raising the lid of a treasure chest. Each illuminated psalm is vibrant as a sunrise. She pictures the monk who copied the verse and decorated the margins, but instead of ink, she imagines him dipping his quill in the colors of bluebirds and holly berries and bright spring moss." ~~ from 'Canticle' by Janet Rich Edwards
Once again I must repeat it—our world is populated by the sleeping, who have died and are dreaming that they are alive. That is why there are more and more people in the world, for it is populated by the sleeping dead who keep growing in number, while the real people living for the first time are few. In all this confusion none of us knows or can possibly know if he is someone who is only dreaming life or really living it. -- from 'House of Day, House of Night' by Olga Tokarczuk, trans. Antonia Lloyd-Jones
An excerpt from Stone of Serpents, book 3 of my Arcanium series, that has been on my mind of late because reason (i.e. because I read the news).
This bit takes place in the middle of a huge battle between the Siershasai'dan fighters and the legions of the dark sorcerer who has terrorized Arcania for 25 years. These are the thoughts of my MC, who gets caught up in the middle of it with his friends.
"He looked at no one. His face was a mask.
They walked on."
- The Long Walk by Stephen King (writing as Richard Bachman)
#Books #Bookstodon #BookQuote #BookQuoteWednesday #StephenKing @bookstodon
A Persian inscription on a sixteenth-century platter reads: “That this platter always be full, always surrounded by friends, that they are lacking for nothing and that they enjoy everything well.” -- from 'Adventures in the Louvre' by Elaine Sciolino
“It might be a painting where you study the artist’s pencil lines and paint, and the characters and their expressions. Paintings are like a book.” Consciously or not, he echoed one of the most famous sayings about the Louvre, by Cézanne, who once referred to the museum as “the book from which we learn to read.” -- from 'Adventures in the Louvre' by Elaine Sciolino
Did you ever notice how books track you down and hunt you out? They follow you like the hound in Francis Thompson's poem. They know their quarry!... Words can't describe the cunning of some books. You'll think you've shaken them off your trail, and then one day some innocent-looking customer will pop in and begin to talk, and you'll know he's an unconscious agent of book-destiny.
~~ from 'The Haunted Bookshop' by Christopher Morley
"Generally, there are remarkably few born who have a new thought, who are capable, if only slightly, of saying anything new —strangely few, in fact."
Crime & Punishment #bookquote
"All children, except one, grow up. Recent events had proven to me, again, that I wasn’t that one, not that I’d ever considered I might be. The other issue is that 'growing up' isn’t a destination the same way as 'grandmother’s house' is. It’s not a condition you arrive at, like 'growing bored' or 'becoming hungry,' but rather a process that ends—as the Bard might say—gravely."
Ishmael Horatio Wang - main character of the series Trader's Tales from The Golden Age of the Solar Clipper from book 3, Full Share by Nathan Lowell
#bookquote
"You see and remember; this text is a memorial, a wailing wall, for the dead and the mourners have no other place to meet except by the wall of words—the wall that unites the living and the dead." ~~ from 'Oblivion' by Sergei Lebedev, trans. Antonina W. Bouis
There were prodigies and portents enough, One-Eye says. We must blame ourselves for misinterpreting them. One-Eye’s handicap in no way impairs his marvelous hindsight. - The Chronicles of the Black Company by Glen Cook #bookquote
"And quite a few books.
I always think that the quickest way to understand someone is to look at what's on their bookshelves. Especially if they are honest bookshelves, not the fancy ornamental kind. And there was nothing fancy or ornamental about this place."
- Grace Winters, The Life Impossible by Matt Haig
#Books #Bookstodon #BookQuote #BookQuoteWednesday #Quote @bookstodon
“The smile,” Leonardo interrupted him as he put one foot on the paintbox and, leaning forward, picked up a few brushes which he then let drop one by one, “the smile is not immortal, it’s merely unfinished, that’s all.” ~~ from 'Mona Lisa' by Alexander Lernet-Holenia, trans. Ignat Avsey
"Maybe not. But what he does next doesn't have to be for him. Maybe all he can do is keep trying to give the world back to itself, to continue to free whatever he can from the long damage of human want." -- from 'Appleseed' by Matt Bell
"Christmas doesn't like me. It's a conspiracy. Christmas is a conspiracy to make single people feel lonely." - Michael, Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
Make your own story today. If you're flying solo, don't be afraid to start a story with someone new.
There are already enough conspiracy theories out there. #JoinIn
#Bookstodon #BookQuote #MerryChristmas #Christmas2025 #Today
Client Info
Server: https://mastodon.social
Version: 2025.07
Repository: https://github.com/cyevgeniy/lmst