Laura

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Orson Scott Card
“Home is anywhere that you know all your friends and all your enemies.”
Orson Scott Card, Hart's Hope

Don DeLillo
“The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation. There must be something in family life that generates factual error. Over-closeness, the noise and heat of being. Perhaps even something deeper like the need to survive. Murray says we are fragile creatures surrounded by a world of hostile facts. Facts threaten our happiness and security. The deeper we delve into things, the looser our structure may seem to become. The family process works towards sealing off the world. Small errors grow heads, fictions proliferate. I tell Murray that ignorance and confusion can’t possibly be the driving forces behind family solidarity. What an idea, what a subversion. He asks me why the strongest family units exist in the least developed societies. Not to know is a weapon of survival, he says. Magic and superstition become entrenched as the powerful orthodoxy of the clan. The family is strongest where objective reality is most likely to be misinterpreted. What a heartless theory, I say. But Murray insists it’s true.”
Don DeLillo, White Noise

David  Mitchell
“If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.”
David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

Per Petterson
“People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not, they know _about_ you, for what they are let in on are facts, not feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what has happened to you and how all the decisions you have made have turned you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook. No-one can touch you unless you yourself want them to.”
Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses

“For several thousand years man has been in contact with animals whose character and habits have been deformed by domestication. He has ended by believing that he understands them. All he means by this is that he is able to rely on certain reflex actions which he himself has implanted in them. He will flatter himself at times on the grasp of animal psychology which has brought him the love of the dog and the purr of the cat; and on the strength of such assumptions he approaches the beasts of the jungle. The old tag about nature being an open book is just not true. What nature offers on a first examination may appear to be simple but it is never as simple as it appears.”
Hans Brick, Jungle, Be Gentle

185 What's the Name of That Book??? — 120240 members — last activity 0 minutes ago
Can't remember the title of a book you read? Come search our bookshelves and discussion posts. If you don’t find it there, post a description on our U ...more
99677 Zookeepers Who Read — 151 members — last activity Aug 02, 2019 12:38PM
A fun group for zookeepers to discuss books of interest to those in our profession. We have several hundred books on our shelves, and each month we ch ...more
341 Beantown Bookworms — 418 members — last activity Jul 30, 2018 08:17PM
For goodreads members living in & around Boston, MA. General discussion about topics including - but not limited to - favorite bookstores & libraries, ...more
253 CORNELL UNIVERSITY — 12 members — last activity Jun 22, 2007 08:10AM
Anyone who is a student (grad or undergrad) or an alumnus of Cornell University.
185373 Zookeepers Book Club — 328 members — last activity Jan 02, 2026 09:09AM
For every trainer or zookeeper! For anyone who has a career with animals or is planning one. For volunteers looking for a way to get their foot in the ...more
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