Stephen Yoder

“Don't ask where the rest of this book is!" It is a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among the shelves. "All books continue in the beyond...”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

“Nobody these days holds the written word in such high esteem as police states do,' Arkadian Porpirych says. 'What statistic allows one to identify the nations where literature enjoys true consideration better than the sums appropriated for controlling it and suppressing it? Where it is the object of such attentions, literature gains an extraordinary authority, inconceivable in countries where it is allowed to vegetate as an innocuous pastime, without risks.”
― Italo Calvino, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

“I realize that some of you may have come in hopes of hearing tips on how to
become a professional writer. I say to you, "If you really want to hurt your
parents, and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can
do is go into the arts. But do not use semicolons. They are transvestite
hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've
been to college.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“I expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
― William Penn