Nothing rang better in a sailor’s ear than the call to “splice the main brace”—the euphemism for doling out rum.
“But then there were other days, days when I would, quite unexpectedly, meet someone who saw the past not as a burden but as a forgotten story, now due to be retold; there were days when I would find an old house, or old church, or something unexpected like the cemetery in L’viv, which suddenly revealed the secret history of a place or a nation. That was part of what I was looking for: evidence that things of beauty had survived war, communism, and Russification; proof that difference and variety can outlast an imposed homogeneity; testimony, in fact, that people can survive any attempt to uproot them.”
― Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe
― Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe
“What you have to consider,” he says, "is the possibility that God doesn’t like you. Could be, God hates us. This is not the worst thing that can happen.”
― Fight Club
― Fight Club
“Sometimes, when you go on foot there, when you walk in the woods near the old pagan temples, you feel something very strong. It is like the energy you feel in a church, or the energy you feel when a boy and a girl are in love and touch hands for the first time.”
― Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe
― Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe
“After half a day in a place—especially a foreign country—you’ve learned more than from all the books and articles you’ve read.”
― The Joys of Travel: And Stories That Illuminate Them
― The Joys of Travel: And Stories That Illuminate Them
“A traveler can meet a man born in Poland, brought up in the Soviet Union, who now lives in Belarus – and he has never left his village.”
― Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe
― Between East and West: Across the Borderlands of Europe
Bryan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Bryan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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