The Land of Lost Things Quotes

“That was what stories did, or the ones that mattered to us: They helped us to understand others, but they could also make us feel understood in turn, and less alone in the world.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Sometimes, in life as in dreams, the world tries to communicate a truth to us, but in a manner so subtle that it takes us time to figure out.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“It’s not the people who read books you have to worry about, but the people who don’t.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“To do nothing in the face of another's misfortune is to be no better than those who might have caused it to begin with, and the measure of the best of us is that we can correctly measure our own inconvenience against the weight of someone else's pain.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“What is right draws rightness to it, and it has always been the way. What else is hope, but the belief that rightness can prevail?”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Ceres, like all readers, was altered by every book she read, and so her life became a record of their consumption.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“We carry our childhood, the good and the bad of it, into our adult lives. In that way, we’re never very far from the children we once were.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“(...) Books retained traces of all those who read them, in a form of flakes of skin, hairs visible and minute, the oils from the fingertips, even blood and tears, so that just as a book became part of the reader, so, too, did a reader become part of the book.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“It is the curse of being long-lived: life ceases to hold many surprises, and only by giving oneself up to extremes can the monotony be broken.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Time is cruel,” said Faera. “More than it gives, it takes: youth, beauty, even dreams. It steals them all, and consigns you to the dark at the close.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“You have to love not one dog, but all dogs," he would explain to Ceres. "You only have them for a short time, you see. To them it's a lifetime, while for you it's never long enough. So you love each of them for what they are, because no two are ever the same. But you also love dogness, the fact of them in your life and the world, so they become individual chapters in a book that spans your days, and you name that book Dog.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“this was the human condition: often to be lost, confused, or anxious, but finally to comprehend that, at crucial instances, we will find ourselves lost precisely where we were meant to be; that there is little of use to be learned from the familiar—one may gain comfort from it, but not knowledge—only from what is strange and new; and that everything worth experiencing or embracing is, because unknown, first touched by fear.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“The author had found a way to turn his pain into a novel, and that novel had occasionally helped others with their pain. That was what stories did, or the ones that mattered to us: They helped us to understand others, but they could also make us feel understood in turn, and less alone in the world.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Il croyait à chacune des paroles qu'il avait prononcées parce qu'il s'était depuis longtemps convaincu de leur bien-fondé. Ainsi un homme peut-il devenir un menteur sans cesser de se croire honnête.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“that there is little of use to be learned from the familiar—one may gain comfort from it, but not knowledge—only from what is strange and new; and that everything worth experiencing or embracing is, because unknown, first touched by fear.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“human or dryad, faun or Fae—are entirely bad.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Alfred Prufrock had measured out his life in coffee spoons, her father measured out his in dogs.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“What mattered was that she appreciated the value of literature. When some idiot politician or finger-wagging do-gooder complained about the books on school reading lists because they dared to treat adolescents with respect, or acknowledge that issues of race, sexuality, and gender might be of some relevance to them as they strode the path to adulthood, he would always make the same remark: “It’s not the people who read books you have to worry about, but the people who don’t.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Because, her father would tell her, once a book or story was told for the first time, reality itself shifted. The story became part of the world, and anyone who heard it, or read it, and in whom it took root, was never the same again. Stories were a benign infection, transforming their hosts—or generally benign, because some books could reshape people for the worse. Pour enough venom into a book, or warp truth sufficiently in its pages, and you could turn a weak mind hateful. But the more one read, and the wider one’s reading, the stronger one’s mind became. This was why, in the end, her father was content that his daughter consumed any books at all, even if they weren’t always ones of which he approved. What mattered was that she appreciated the value of literature. When some idiot politician or finger-wagging do-gooder complained about the books on school reading lists because they dared to treat adolescents with respect, or acknowledge that issues of race, sexuality, and gender might be of some relevance to them as they strode the path to adulthood, he would always make the same remark: “It’s not the people who read books you have to worry about, but the people who don’t.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“David had learned to accept the horrors of this place, this Elsewhere, because it allowed him to be with his wife and son again. If you concentrated only on the worst aspects of existence, they became all you saw, but they were never all there was, even when everything was at its bleakest.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“What kept her going was her love for her daughter, and a duty not to abandon her, but also those instances of peace and beauty that were given to everyone, those occasions of joy, however fleeting, that made life bearable, and enabled us to carry on.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“To do nothing in the face of another’s misfortune is to be no better than those who might have caused it to begin with, and the measure of the best of us is that we can correctly measure our own inconvenience against the weight of someone else’s pain.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Not unsympathetic, just unsurprised. I’ve spent a lifetime dealing with men who declined to pay attention when I spoke, or dismissed whatever I had to say—not every man, but enough for a pattern of behavior to become apparent. Eventually, one of them was bound to push it too far. Stands to reason. I don’t think men realize how much time women spend either being angry with them or trying not to be.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Then Phoebe had come along, and Ceres didn’t have time to be alone, and was never lonely as long as her daughter was around.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Ceres had never minded being alone when she was younger, because there was a difference between being lonely and alone. Books had helped back then, because a person with a good book could never be lonely.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“As a young woman she had enjoyed drawing, but stopped in late adolescence when she grasped that all she was doing was trying to reproduce the world. Real artists, by contrast, rendered the world anew, which was beyond her abilities. She had knowledge, but what she lacked, she decided, was imagination.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Was there a force in the universe that heard our darkest wishes, only to grant them with an added twist of malice?”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“They had done their best to be considerate toward her, but people only have so much time, attention, and care to give, and the torments and sorrows of others can be draining, even for the most generous among us.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“It is an error to assume those around us are not as significant as ourselves, or that their fears, aspirations, and desires are not as worthy of attention as our own. This is how our best-laid plans may be undermined, because they are based on a premise that is false from the start: I am important, other people less so, and everyone involved accepts this version of affairs.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things

“Raging against it, or despairing, would not change anything. The past does not imprison us. We may offer ourselves up as its captives, but equally, we can choose to open the cell door and walk free. Even if it's locked, the key is nearby, because we keep it with us always. It's just a matter of finding the right pocket.”
― John Connolly, The Land of Lost Things