Marcus

Add friend
Sign in to Goodreads to learn more about Marcus.

http://marcusvorwaller.com/
https://www.goodreads.com/zzzmarcus

The Heart of Prayer
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
Letting Go: The P...
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
You Are the Place...
Rate this book
Clear rating

 
See all 52 books that Marcus is reading…
Loading...
Philip Roth
“Everybody who flashed the signs of loyalty he took to be loyal. Everybody who flashed the signs of intelligence he took to be intelligent. And so he had failed to see into his daughter, failed to see into his wife, failed to see into his one and only mistress—probably had never even begun to see into himself”
Philip Roth, American Pastoral

Marcel Proust
“Through art alone are we able to emerge from ourselves, to know what another person sees of a universe which is not the same as our own and of which, without art, the landscapes would remain as unknown to us as those that may exist on the moon. Thanks to art, instead of seeing one world only, our own, we see that world multiply itself and we have at our disposal as many worlds as there are original artists, worlds more different one from the other than those which revolve in infinite space, worlds which, centuries after the extinction of the fire from which their light first emanated, whether it is called Rembrandt or Vermeer, send us still each one its special radiance.”
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Vol 6: Time Regained and A Guide to Proust

Franz Kafka
“Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we’d be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like suicide. A book must be the ax for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.”
Franz Kafka

Vladimir Nabokov
“... 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 no 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 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 achievement 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, Lectures on Literature

David  Mitchell
“As many truths as men. Occasionally, I glimpse a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself, but as I approach, it bestirs itself & moves deeper into the thorny swamp of dissent.”
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

12350 The Importance of Reading Ernest — 349 members — last activity Jan 26, 2026 01:11AM
A book club for those who want to read and talk about Hemingway's work. We'll read a new novel or short story collection every month and talk about it ...more
8095 Goodreads Developers — 3057 members — last activity Jul 02, 2026 03:31PM
Official group for developers on Goodreads to coordinate and build cool apps. For general Goodreads support, please visit our help page.
year in books
Glenn R...
3,211 books | 4,974 friends

Andrew
943 books | 94 friends

Darwin8u
5,092 books | 1,762 friends

Doug Br...
749 books | 678 friends

Anna
471 books | 41 friends

Steve S...
642 books | 4,243 friends

Jonatha...
2,257 books | 676 friends

Emmanue...
630 books | 97 friends

More friends…



Polls voted on by Marcus

Lists liked by Marcus