Sign in with Facebook
76,940 books
—
286,320 voters
“Maman used to say that you can always find something to be happy about. In my prison, when the sky turned red and a new day slipped into my cell, I found out that she was right.”
― The Stranger
― The Stranger
“Holy shit.” This is the kind of sunset you hardly see any more, a 19th-century wilderness sunset, a few of which got set down, approximated, on canvas, landscapes of the American West by artists nobody ever heard of, when the land was still free and the eye innocent, and the presence of the Creator much more direct. Here it thunders now over the Mediterranean, high and lonely, this anachronism in primal red, in yellow purer that can be found anywhere today, a purity begging to be polluted…of course Empire took its way westward, what other way was there but into those virgin sunsets to penetrate and to foul?”
― Gravity’s Rainbow
― Gravity’s Rainbow
“The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic; the passions that we feel expand it, those that we inspire contract it; and habit fills up what remains.”
― In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
― In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
“I have just realized that the stakes are myself
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life”
―
I have no other
ransom money, nothing to break or barter but my life”
―
“I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and thus effectively lost to us until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have recognised them the spell is broken. Delivered by us, they have overcome death and return to share our life.
And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die.”
― Swann’s Way
And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) of which we have no inkling. And it depends on chance whether or not we come upon this object before we ourselves must die.”
― Swann’s Way
Ben’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Ben’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
408 books
|
300 friends
2,805 books
|
2,651 friends
841 books
|
56 friends
2,546 books
|
4,999 friends
2,514 books
|
200 friends
3,365 books
|
715 friends
15,635 books
|
1,444 friends
3,185 books
|
42 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Ben
Lists liked by Ben
