The Bookshop Quotes

“A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Courage and endurance are useless if they are never tested.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Surely you have to succeed, if you give everything you have.'
'I don't see why. Everyone has to give everything they have eventually. They have to die. Dying can't be called a success.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Understanding makes the mind lazy.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“It was defeat, but defeat is less unwelcome when you are tired.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“She did not know that morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“What seemed delicacy in him was usually a way of avoiding trouble; what seemed like sympathy was the instinct to prevent trouble before it started. It was hard to see what growing older would mean to such a person. His emotions, from lack of exercise, had disappeared almost altogether. Adaptability and curiosity, he had found, did just as well.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Old age is not the same thing as historical interest,’ he said. ‘Otherwise we should both of us be more interesting than we are.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Florence had noticed one or two eccentricities in herself lately, which might be the result of hard work, or of age, or of living alone. When the letters came, for example, she often found herself wasting time in looking at the postmarks and wondering whoever they could be from, instead of opening them in a sensible manner and finding out at once.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“I have read Lolita, as you requested. It is a good book, and therefore you should try to sell it to the inhabitants of Hardborough. They won't understand it, but that is all to the good. Understanding makes the mind lazy.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“She had once seen a heron flying across the estuary and trying, while it was on the wing, to swallow an eel which it had caught. The eel, in turn, was struggling to escape from the gullet of the heron and appeared a quarter, a half, or occasionally three-quarters of the way out. The indecision expressed by both creatures was pitiable. They had taken on too much.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Her courage, after all, was only a determination to survive. The”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“It’s a peculiar thing to take a step forward in middle age, but having done it I don’t intend to retreat.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Not to succeed in one thing is to fail in all.’ Far more frightening than any poltergeist is the spectre of loneliness in old age.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“A good book is the precious life-blood of a masterspirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“I enjoy very little leisure in the evenings. But don’t misunderstand me, I find a good book at my bedside of incalculable value. When I eventually retire I’ve no sooner read a few pages than I’m overwhelmed with sleep.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“- Dicen por ahí que está usted a punto de abrir una librería. Eso significa que no le importa enfrentarse a cosas inverosímiles.
(…)
- ¿Por qué cree que abrir una librería es inverosímil? -le gritó al viento-. ¿La gente de Hardoborough no quiere comprar libros?
- Han perdido el deseo por las cosas raras -dijo Raven mientras seguía limando-. Se venden más arenques ahumados, por ejemplo que truchas están medio ahumadas y tienen un sabor más delicado. Y no me diga usted que los libros no constituyen una rareza en si mismos.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Um bom livro é o precioso sangue vital de um espírito mestre, embalsamado e entesourado de propósito para uma vida para lá da vida.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“As the train drew out of the station she sat with her head bowed in shame, because the town she had lived in for nearly ten years had not wanted a bookshop.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“You’re either a child or a woman, and neither of them have any idea how to relax.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“Will-power is useless without a sense of direction.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“se había engañado a sí misma al dejarse convencer, por un momento, de que los seres humanos no se dividen en exterminadores y exterminados, y que los exterminadores tienden a colocarse en la situación dominante en cuanto pueden. La fuerza de voluntad es inútil si no se va a algún lado.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“They were all kind to their hostess, because it made life easier.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“La valentía de ella, al fin y al cabo, no era otra cosa que su determinación por sobrevivir.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“—No debo preocuparme —dijo ella—. Mientras hay vida, hay esperanza.
—Qué idea tan terrible”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“La fuerza de voluntad es inútil si no se va a algún lado”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“She ought to go down to the beach. It was Thursday, early closing, and it seemed ungrateful to live so close to the sea and never look at it for weeks on end.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop

“In the winter of 1960, therefore, having sent her heavy luggage on ahead, Florence Green took the bus into Flintmarket via Saxford Tye and Kingsgrave.”
― Penelope Fitzgerald, The Bookshop