Making Stories

Books, Story, Writing 0

We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things, and we owe it to our readers to build them as best we can. Because somewhere out there is someone who needs that story. Someone who will grow up with a different landscape, who without that story will be a different person. And who with that story may have hope, or wisdom, or kindness, or comfort.

And that is why we write.

–Neil Gaiman, Newbery Acceptance Speech, Horn Book Magazine, July/August 2009, Volume LXXXV Number 4, p. 350

Fantasy

Books, Inspiration, Life 0

Fantasy instead teaches us that there is something worthwhile you can do on the way to the grave: you can dream. And that maybe that dreaming is not only intrinsically valuable, for its own sake, but that sometimes the dream can take on a life of its own, a life that persists, and that shapes and sometimes even ennobles the lives of others that it touches, sometimes long after the original dreamer is gone from this earth.

— Gardner Dozois, Preface, Modern Classics of Fantasy

So Many Books. . .

Books, Reading 0

It is easy to buy a book; what is more difficult is to purchase the time in which to read them. Too often the mere fact of possession tempts us to think we own the contents.

— Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), quoted in The Book Lover: Quotable Quotes, Magpie Books, London, p. 26

Roaming the World in Books

Books, Inspiration, Reading 0

It’s refreshing to roam the world — plunging into different countries, meeting new people and tasting their cuisine. If walking another step in your home leaves you less than inspired, sashay into a well-told story. The charms of being at home return after sampling new horizons. Books are an open invitation to another place and time. . . . Good books lead us to discover that it is not our house that binds us, but rather the dullness of our thoughts. Reading refreshes the mind and the imagination.

— Lisa Groen Braner, The Mother’s Book of Well-Being, p. 72

Reading

Books, Joy, Reading 0

That’s what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you onto another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book.  It’s geometrically progressive — all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

— Juliet Ashton in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

Library as Support Group

Books, Librarians 0

There is a belief that once you begin to open books, you will become a better person.  It is Pandora’s box, but in a good way.  You are inching toward the promised land, page by page.  And it doesn’t matter if you subscribe to this theory or not.  The subscription has already been bought and paid for.

We are all misfits, poseurs, and clowns.  We are heartbroken and lonely, failures in life, criminals and frauds.  Most of our successes are pleasant illusions.  Through the books on the shelves, the library becomes a support group and lets us know that we are not alone.  Once we realize we are not alone, we can relax, set our burdens down, and move on.

— Don Borchert, Free for All, p. xiv-xv

The True Glory of the Library

Books, Librarians 0

Sometimes a library use is simple.  You want something, go to the library to get it, and leave satisfied.  Sometimes it can be more than that.  You look at a website on a library computer and that reminds you of a book of which you have not thought for years or takes you to an article by someone completely unknown to you that, in turn, takes you to a DVD of a half-forgotten movie.  Once you have had that experience, you understand the true glory of the library — that complex and never-ending series of connections to the entire human record.

— Michael Gorman, Our Own Selves:  More Meditations for Librarians, p. 204

So Many Books

Books, Reading 0

“Pass the time?” said the Queen.  “Books are not about passing the time.  They’re about other lives.  Other worlds.  Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it.  If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.”

— The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett, p. 29

Reading and Travel

Books, Humor 0

There are some who say that sitting at home reading is the equivalent of travel, because the experiences described in the book are more or less the same as the experiences one might have on a voyage, and there are those who say that there is no substitute for venturing out into the world.  My own opinion is that it is best to travel extensively but to read the entire time, hardly glancing up to look out of the window of the airplane, train, or hired camel.

— Lemony Snicket, Horseradish, p. 85