Good Reads

Moon Palace, Paul Auster
"I had thought I was acting with courage, but it turned out that I was merely demonstrating the most abject form of cowardice: rejoicing in my contempt for the world, refusing to look things squarely in the face."

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
"I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool."

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
"I keep thinking about this river somewhere, with the water moving really fast. And these two people in the water, trying to hold onto each other, holding on as hard as they can, but in the end it's just too much. The current's too strong. They've got to let go, drift apart."

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
"Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, Vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves."

Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison
"Milkman closed his eyes and opened them. The street was even more crowded with people, all going in the direction he was coming from. All walking hurriedly and bumping against him. After a while he realized that nobody was walking on the other side of the street."

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami
"Winter has given everything around me a mysterious weight; I alone seem an outsider to that ponderous world."

The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
"Words, Caravaggio. They have a power."

Le Petit Prince, Antoine Saint de Saint-Exupery
"Les grandes personnes ne comprennent jamais rien toutes seules, et c'est fatigant, pour les enfants, de toujours et toujours leur donner des explications."

Season of Migration to the North, Tayeb Salih
"...I -- like him and Wad Rayyes and millions of others -- was not immune from the germ of contagion that oozes from the body of the universe."

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger
"It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to."