Jacob's Room is Full of Books Quotes

“One of the best presents anyone can give you is the name of a writer whose books they believe will be ‘you’ – and they are. Someone you would almost certainly never have found for yourself. They expand your horizons, they enrich you, they lead you forward, they chime with truths you already know and confirm them, they share new truths of their own with you.”
― Susan Hill, Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading

“I always wait until at least a year after any of the prizes before reading those on the lists which appeal. It is amazing how everything settles down and finds its natural level. Hype never did any reader much good.”
― Susan Hill, Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading

“A good reader pays attention to everything. The surface of the prose. The structure of the book. The tense. The point of view. Perhaps to those even before the characters. Then comes the setting. The story can often come last.”
― Susan Hill, Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading

“I have had too much personal evidence of the presence of the dead, too many clear hints of a glorious after-life, to ignore. I would not make these up to comfort myself but they are an inexpressible consolation in the face of death. Would I deny them in the face of the sneers and jeers of others? If I did, I would be untrue to myself and my own experiences. I respect the unbelief of others. They should respect my faith.”
― Susan Hill, Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading

“It is beyond sad. To be unable to face death, to be defiant, to go through the worst of physical and mental pain, because of an inability even to contemplate the idea that there might be a spiritual dimension to life—and to death and after-death—because of an intellectual arrogance. How terrible must that be? . . . . The intellect, the mighty brain, the pride, the stubbornness—how they stand in the way of any gentleness or humility, let alone an kindness to the self. An open mind is surely best in the fact of death, because intellectual pride and arrogance, and how your fellows, who hold the same position, think of you, gets you nowhere. Belief, admitting the possibility of another dimension, of a spiritual side to humanity, is no more of a sure thing than negativity, but at the very least it is a comfort—and what is wrong with that?”
― Susan Hill, Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading

“Sometimes a book has its day and, although of course it does not change, the reader does, as a result of having read better things, or new tastes having come to the fore, or fashions in literature having moved on. Other novels seem to have improved, usually because we have matured as readers, our imaginations have expanded and we understand new literary approaches, sometimes because of life events which have opened us up to a new emotional awareness and understanding.”
― Susan Hill, Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading