“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language And next year’s words await another voice.”

T. S. Eliot

 

“Every nation has a central idea from which all its minor thoughts radiate.”

Abraham Lincoln

Quote of the Week

 

There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.

MARCEL PROUST

 

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” – Truman Capote — rarebooksfirst

“Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” – Truman Capote #TrumanCapote #Breakfastattiffanys

via “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” – Truman Capote — rarebooksfirst

 

How True

“All good poets of the past, almost without exception, were at least bilingual if not trilingual.” —Helen Vendler http://t.co/8xbpDgHAYm

— The Paris Review (@parisreview) December 3, 2013

 

 

On Reading

One sure window into a person’s soul is his reading list.
– Mary B. W. Tabor

 

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read

• Open to a random page

• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page

• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (You don’t want to ruin the book for others.)

• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Here’s mine:

From Michael Chabon‘s Maps & Legends:

A third innovative stroke of Conan Doyle‘s was to find a new way to play the oldest trick in the book, to revise the original pretense of all adventurers, liars, and storytellers–that every word you are about to hear is true.

Holmes was not only aware of his status as a subject of Watson’s “chronicles,” he resented it, and mocked it, even as he profited by the fictional version of the very real success that the stories enjoyed . . . .

From We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

It’s 21:30. The blinds are lowered in the room to the left of mine. In the room on the right, I see my neighbor: bent over a book, his bald patch, knobbly with hummocks, and his forehead, a huge, yellow parabola.

Related articles

• Teaser Tuesdays (July 31) (shouldbereading.wordpress.com)
• Teaser Tuesday 2 (timeforreading.wordpress.com)
• Teaser Tuesdays (July 31) (apaperbacklife.wordpress.com)
• An Early Peek at Michael Chabon’s New Novel, ‘Telegraph Avenue’ (theatlanticwire.com)
• Teaser Tuesday (timeforreading.wordpress.com)
• Teaser Tuesdays (July 24) (shouldbereading.wordpress.com)
• Teaser Tuesday (xingu2.wordpress.com)

 

On Literature

“Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”

—C. S. Lewis

 

Quotation

“Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.”

—Anthony Powell

 

Quotation