I felt like this book had so many great one-liners in it. I underlined some of the things that struck me, but I am sure there are many I just skipped over without even realizing it. Here are a few of my favorites:
-Nuria writes "Of all the things that Julian wrote, the one I have always felt closest to my heart is that so long as we are being remembered, we remain alive." (p. 446) I have heard this idea before, but every time I re-think about it, I am reminded how true it is!
-Also from Nuria, "Julian had once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise." (p.444) This reminds me of the importance of writing! I honestly feel like I have just been discovering the truth of Julian's word in my own life recently.
-Barcelo noted to Daniel, "Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen." (p. 291)
What little gems did you find?
I don't really have any gems to contribute-- I remember reading them and loving them, but wouldn't be able to find them now. I just want to say that my favorite character in the book was Daniel's Dad. I loved that he was so understated but so ... there. He showed so much love for his son. It was almost what he didn't say, rather than what he did, that was in my mind a "gem."
ReplyDeleteYou asked Anna, and I think I may have chosen a few too many, but I could not help myself. There were so many great lines to choose from.
ReplyDeleteThis is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and those who read it and lived it and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down its pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. (5)
Our world will not die as a result of the bomb, as the papers say, it will die of laughter, of banality, of making a joke of everything, and a lousy joke at that. (107)
Julian lived in his books. The body that ended up in the morgue was only a part of him. His soul is in his stories. I once asked him who inspired him to create his characters, and his answer was no one. That all his characters were himself. (171)
Someone once said that the moment you stop to think about whether you love someone, you’ve already stopped loving that person forever. (176)
This is a story about books….about accursed books, about the man who wrote them, about a character who broke out of the pages of a novel so that he could burn it, about a betrayal, and a lost friendship. It’s a story of love, of hatred, and of the dreams that live in the shadow of the wind. (178)
Don’t you see? It feels as if it’s been waiting for me. As if it ahs been hiding her for me since before I was born. (182)
Books are mirrors: you only see in them what you already have inside you. (209)
What destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it. (225)
Making money isn’t hard in itself….What’s hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting one’s life to. (371)
Coincidences are the scars of fate. (440)
Julian once told me that a story is a letter the author writes to himself, to tell himself things that he would be unable to discover otherwise. (444)
Bea says that the art of reading is slowly dying, that it’s an intimate ritual, that a book is a mirror that offers us only what we already carry inside us, that when we read, we do it with all our heart and mind, and great readers are becoming more scarce by the day. (484)