"
There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;
And frogs in the pools, singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,
Robins will wear their feathery fire,
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;
And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.
Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree,
If mankind perished utterly;
And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.
"
- Sara Teasdale
#lit #reading #books #quote #poetry
"’Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,
Have a being less durable even than he."
- William Cowper (1731 - 1800)
#lit #poetry #reading #books #quote
"A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader."
- Vladimir Nabokov (via unsunglory)
#quote #reblog
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte (via readlikebreathing)
#quote
"Lots of women read fiction. Most men don’t. Women read fiction written by women and by men. Most men don’t. If a man opens a novel, he likes to have a masculine name on the cover; it’s reassuring somehow. You never know what might happen to that external genitalia if you immerse yourself in imaginary doings concocted by someone with the goods on the inside."
-
Siri Hustvedt, The Summer Without Men
This quote goes out to all the fellas who read fiction. This quote does not go out to the dude who once told me, “I don’t really like female writers as much as male writers.” For real. That happened. The fact that he is still alive and that I have not murdered him speaks to my restraint.
(via marisreview)
#quote #reblog
"What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore it knows it’s not fooling a soul."
- Neil Gaiman, American Gods (via excessivebookshelf)
#quote #reblog
"Incidentally, I use the word reader very loosely. Curiously enough, one cannot read a book: one can only reread it. A good reader, a major reader, an active and creative reader is a rereader. And I shall tell you why. When we read a book for the first time the very process of laboriously moving our eyes from left to right, line after line, page after page, this complicated physical work upon the book, the very process of learning in terms of space and time what the book is about, this stands between us and artistic appreciation. When we look at a painting we do not have to move our eyes in a special way even if, as in a book, the picture contains elements of depth and development. The element of time does not really enter in a first contact with a painting. In reading a book, we must have time to acquaint ourselves with it. We have no physical organ (as we have the eye in regard to a painting) that takes in the whole picture and then can enjoy its details. But at a second, or third, or fourth reading we do, in a sense, behave towards a book as we do towards a painting. However, let us not confuse the physical eye, that monstrous masterpiece of evolution, with the mind, an even more monstrous achievement. A book, no matter what it is—a work of fiction or a work of science (the boundary line between the two is not as clear as is generally believed)—a book of fiction appeals first of all to the mind. The mind, the brain, the top of the tingling spine, is, or should be, the only instrument used upon a book."
- Vladimir Nabokov on what makes a good reader. (via supposedlysomething)
#quote #nabokov #reblog
"A little before you go to sleep read something that is exquisite."
- Desiderius Erasmus, Colloquies: Of the Method of Study (via litverve)
#reblog #quote
"Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson (via restaurer)
#ralph waldo emerson #quote #reblog
"Readers are plentiful: thinkers are rare."
-
Harriet Martineau (via breathingbooks)
I like this. I like this very, very much.
#quote #reblog
"
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
"
- John McCrae
#lit #quote #mccrae #poetry
