#NEJJ QUOTES | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

alienejj · 2 months

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Books are a habit-forming drug

— Agatha Christie

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alienejj · 3 months

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"Knowing you have something good to read before bed is among the most pleasurable of sensations"

— Vladimir Nabokov.

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alienejj · 2 months

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“Read, read, read. Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You'll absorb it.”

— William Faulkner.

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alienejj · 1 month

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“When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.”

― Cliff Fadiman

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alienejj · 3 months

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“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for?"

— Franz Kafka.

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alienejj · 2 months

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“There is no greater mistake in life than seeing things or hearing them at the wrong time. Shakespeare is ruined for most people by having been made to learn it at school; you should see Shakespeare as it was written to be seen, played on the stage. There you can appreciate it quite young, long before you take in the beauty of the words and of the poetry.”

― by Agatha Christie from Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

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alienejj · 3 months

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“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”

― J.R.R. Tolkien

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alienejj · 3 months

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

— Marcel Proust.

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alienejj · 3 months

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"The books I loved in childhood - the first loves - I've read so often that I've internalized them in some really essential way: they are more inside me now than out."

— Donna Tartt.

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alienejj · 2 months

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“I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.”

— Kurt Vonnegut.

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alienejj · 3 months

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Some classic Asian literature I own:

Monkey: The Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-en, translated by Arthur Waley. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, translated by Martin Palmer. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin.

Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories summary:

A collection of exuberant, imaginitive and sometimes wierd short stories by a man who's work continues to influence modern day authors.

Some lovely quotes from Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories:

“I don't have the strength to keep writing this. To go on living with this feeling is painful beyond description. Isn't there someone kind enough to strangle me in my sleep?” “I have no conscience at all -- least of all an artistic conscience. All I have is nerves.” “Yes -- or rather, it's not so much that I want to die as that I'm tired of living.” “Truly human life is as evanescent as the morning dew or a flash of lightning.” “In a word, tears like this light a modest lamp of human love amid the gathering dusk of human suffering.”

I made another two similar posts, one for Monkey: The Journey to the West and one for The Romance of The Three Kingdoms.

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alienejj · 1 month

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Come, my fine cat, against my loving heart; Sheathe your sharp claws, and settle. And let my eyes into your pupils dart Where agate sparks with metal.

— from The Cat by Roy Campbell.

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alienejj · 2 months

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"Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist."

— Ian McEwan.

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alienejj · 3 months

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Some classic Asian literature I own:

Monkey: The Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-en, translated by Arthur Waley. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, translated by Martin Palmer. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin.

Monkey: The Journey to the West summary:

Written in the sixteenth century, Monkey is a retelling of a famous Chinese Legend. A heroic epic, it chronicles the adventures of Prince Tripitaka, a young buddhist priest, travelling with his three quirky (non-human) disciples; Pigsy, Sandy and Monkey. It's a story with a typical adventure plot line where the gang sets off on a quest, and along the way will face many supernatural foes, it is very much along the lines of Homer or the Illiad.

Some lovely quotes from Monkey:

“Monkey now produced his staff and the two of them did their best to kill each other, like the affectionate in-laws they were.” “But a single strand does not make a thread nor can one hand clap.” “Why did you go towards the monster when he wanted to eat you up instead of running away? Now he's swallowed you. Today you're still a monk, but tomorrow you'll be a turd.” “With passions stilled and one’s nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure.” “After following it for nearly two miles he came across two she-monsters drawing water from a well. How did he know that they were monsters? Each of them had on her head an extremely unfashionable hair-style held up by bamboo slivers that stood one foot two or three inches high.”

I made another two similar posts, one for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and one for Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories.

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alienejj · 3 months

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Still new to aesthetically taking pictures of books, so please forgive me. I really like the dark academia aesthetic and I'm trying to replicate it in my daily writing blogs and general book posts. Here are some of my favourite lines:

"And thou, strange Star, ascendant at my birth which rained, they said, kind influence on the earth so from great parents sprung I dared to boast Fortune my friend..." - From a poem written By Mary Shelley.

"How much is lost by those who pass their lives in cities - They are never visited by those sweet feelings which to recollect alone is heaven ... how boundless and terrific would be their surprise if they could suddenly become philosophers and view things in their true and beautiful point of view." - From the journals of Claire Clairmont, 17 August 1814.

Taken from the biography were the author quotes from the jorunals of Mary Shelley's step-sister.

"Be happy. Resolve to be happy, Godwin urged her on 17 August. You deserve to be so. Everything that interferes with it is weakness and wandering; and a woman like you, can, must, shall, shake it off." - From a letter William Godwin sent to Mary Wollstonecraft.

Taken from the biography, the author includes a snippet of correspondence between Mary Shelley's parents.

I made the silly green bookmark. when I buy books I rip out the first page that has the title of the book and the author's name and I craft a bookmark using that page of the book.

I loved this biography and could not get enough of it. The author is incredibly talented, to have written over 600 pages of a nonfiction book that had me hooked from the first page. Her writing is poetic, and lyrical, rivalling the author she writes about.

I'm only now realising my mistake, I've only posted the quotes she quoted from other sources and not her writing, so the next post I make about this book I'll show samples of her own writing.

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alienejj · 13 days

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Experience that breathing.

From books and words come fantasy,

and sometimes, from fantasy comes union.

― Rumi

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