Andrejs > Andrejs's Quotes

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”
― Albert Camus

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”
― Jerome K. Jerome

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Garden of Eden

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?”
― Ernest Hemingway

“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
― Hemingway, Ernest

“In order to write about life first you must live it.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“you can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

“I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

“If two people love each other there can be no happy end to it.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“Write drunk; edit sober.”
― Peter De Vries, Reuben, Reuben

“- Reizēm man šķiet, ka es jūs vispār nepazīstu.
Tabaki dāsnā žestā atrauj vaļā abas vestes:
- Skaties, lūk - es. Kā uz delnas. Ko te var nepazīt?
Zem vestēm ir nosmulēkts krekls. Sarkanas žirafītes uz gaiši zila fona.”
― Mariama Petrosjana, Дом, в котором...

“Mellas jau ir savā gultā. Guļ, cenzdamies atcerēties ļoti iepatikušos dzejoli par vecīti, kurš izvilka no upes suni. Tās pašas gultas otrajā stāvā Kumpis nikni berž sienu ar siekalām samērcētu lakatiņu, tīrīdams nost tieši šo dzejoli.”
― Mariama Petrosjana, Дом, в котором...

“Varbūt kafija ir pieaugušo dzēriens? Kas to dzer, kļūst pieaudzis? Pēc Sienāža domām, tā arī bija. Dzīve pakļāvās saviem, neviena neizdomātiem likumiem, un viens no šādiem likumiem bija kafija un tie, kas kafiju dzer. Sākumā tev ļauj dzert kafiju. Pēc tam vairs nepieskata, cikos tu aizej gulēt. Smēķēt neviens neļauj, bet neatļaut var dažādi. [..] Viss sākas ar kafiju.”
― Mariama Petrosjana, Дом, в котором...

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
― Albert Einstein

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
― Albert Camus, The Fall

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
― Tom Bodett

“Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.”
― Moli

“A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“I have a theory that the truth is never told during the nine-to-five hours.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable.”
― Clare Boothe Luce

“Man is the Storytelling Animal, and that in stories are his identity, his meaning, and his lifeblood.”
― Salman Rushdie, Luka and the Fire of Life

“Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil, for I am the evilest motherfucker in the valley”
― Alex Garland

“The first duty of wine is to be red. Don't talk to me of your white wines.”
― Henry Murger

“We have to go. I'm almost happy here.”
― Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

“The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.”
― Charles Bukowski

“And the rest is rust and stardust.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

“It's like learning to ride a unicorn. You never forget.”
― Eoin Colfer, Artemis Fowl