Ralph Ellison
What and how much had I lost by trying to do only what was expected of me instead of what I myself had wished to do? ― Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (Vintage International; 2nd edition March 14, 1995) Originally published 1952.
Category: Novel
William Saroyan
I do not know what makes a writer, but it probably isn’t happiness. — William Saroyan, The Bicycle Rider in Beverly Hills ( Charles Scribner’s Sons; 1st edition, January 1, 1952)
Pat Conroy
You get a little moody sometimes but I think that’s because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up. ― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides (Dial Press Trade Paperback; Reprint edition, October 1, 2002) Originally published January 1, 1986.
Orhan Pamuk
I don’t want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning. — Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red (Everyman’s Library; Reprint edition, November 2, 2010) Originally published January 1, 1998.
Irène Némirovsky
Deep within everyone’s heart there always remains a sense of longing for that hour, that summer, that one brief moment of blossoming. For several weeks or months, rarely longer, a beautiful young woman lives outside ordinary life. She is intoxicated. She feels as if she exists beyond time, beyond its laws; she experiences not the… Continue reading Irène Némirovsky
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
The awful thing is that beauty is mysterious as well as terrible. God and the devil are fighting there and the battlefield is the heart of man. — Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 12th edition June 14, 2002) Originally published November 1880.
David Levithan
Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love. — David Levithan, The Realm of Possibility (Ember, May 9, 2006)
Jeanette Winterson
Every moment you steal from the present is a moment you have lost forever. There’s only now. — Jeanette Winterson, The Passion (Grove Press, August 7, 1997)
F. Scott Fitzgerald
I was within and without, simultaneausly enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life. — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby(Charles Scribner’s Sons April 10, 1925)
Arthur Conan Doyle
It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. — Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes, The Hound of the Baskervilles (September 1, 1901)
The Vale of Soul-Making 