The Librarianist Quotes

“Why read at all? Why does anyone do it in the first place? Why do I? There is the element of escape, which is real enough—that’s a real-enough comfort. But also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it. There’s a fraternity achieved, then: we are not alone. Sometimes an author’s voice is familiar to us from the first page, first paragraph, even if the author lived in another country, in another century.” Bob held up his stack of Russians. “How can you account for this familiarity? I do believe that, at our best, there is a link connecting us.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“When we gamble, we're asking the universe what we're worth, and the universe, terrifyingly, tells us.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“There was a shallowness to his gaze which presented him as one unburdened by intelligence.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“part of aging, at least for many of us, was to see how misshapen and imperfect our stories had to be. The passage of time bends us, it folds us up, and eventually, it tucks us right into the ground.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“And while the partial truth is that I don’t believe, the fuller truth is that I believe just enough that I’m uncomfortable talking about my not believing.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist: A Novel

“You’re too young to know the melancholy of returning to a place where once you had thrived. I can say it is not as bad as it sounds. But then, Bob, I’m making a distinction between melancholy and sorrow. Do you understand the difference?” “No.” “Melancholy is the wistful identification of time as thief, and it is rooted in memories of past love and success. Sorrow is a more hopeless proposition. Sorrow is the understanding you shall not get that which you crave and, perhaps, deserve, and it is rooted in, or encouraged by, excuse me, the death impulse.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Bob, the shrug is a useful tool, and seductive in its way; but it is only one arrow in the quiver and we mustn’t overuse it lest we give the false impression of vacancy of the mind, do you see my point?”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“she suffers from an incurable affliction, and its name is grumpiness.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Eileen was not charming but had contemplated charm and could perform a version of it that was convincing so long as you didn't inspect it very closely.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“What are we doing sitting around like pussies when we could be out there with the rest, looking for Chip?"

"I'm surprised to hear you care."

"I'm offended to hear you're surprised."

"I'm apologetic at your being offended."

"I'm accepting of your apology.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“A stream of leaves funneled down the road and pulled him toward his mint-coloured house, the location of his life, the place where he passed through time, passed through rooms.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“His mother did love him; it was just that she didn’t understand him.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Why do this? When you could, as an alternative, not?”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Maria understood that part of aging, at least for many of us, was to see how misshapen and imperfect our stories had to be. The passage of time bends us, it folds us up, and eventually, it tucks us right into the ground.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“accept whatever happiness passes your way, and in whatever form.” “Okay,” said Bob. “Because it’s a fool who argues with happiness, while the wiser man accepts it as it comes, if it comes at all.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Possibly you had plans when you came here, but then mislaid them?”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Days flattened fact, was the merciful truth of the matter. A bell was struck and it sang by the blow performed against it but the noise of the violence moved away and away and the bell soon was cold and mute, intact.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“He understood that the people who knew boredom in the role of librarian were simply in the wrong profession.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“This bad feeling joined forces with his other bad feelings and became one big bad feeling.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“When the work was over there was the maintenance of his home and person and of course his reading, which was a living thing, always moving, eluding, growing, and he knew it could not end, that it was never meant to end.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Bob sometimes had the sense there was a well inside him, a long, bricked column of cold air with still water at the bottom.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Bob had long given up on the notion of knowing anyone, or of being known. He communicated with the world partly by walking through it, but mainly by reading about it.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“I keep meaning to get to books but life distracts me.” “See, for me it’s just the opposite,” Bob said.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Ultimately it was Bob’s lack of vanity and his natural enjoyment of modest accomplishment that gave him the satisfaction to see him through the decades of his lifetime.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“The fall feeling,” said Jill, “is the knowledge of a long dusk coming on.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist: A Novel

“I do believe that, at our best, there is a link connecting us. A lifetime of reading has confirmed this for me.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Why read at all? Why does anyone do it in the first place? Why do I? There is the element of escape, which is real enough—that’s a real-enough comfort. But also we read as a way to come to grips with the randomness of our being alive. To read a book by an observant, sympathetic mind is to see the human landscape in all its odd detail, and the reader says to him or herself, Yes, that’s how it is, only I didn’t know it to describe it.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“Now let me ask you this: Have you ever experienced it?” Bob never had, at least never to any great degree. This struck him as regretful; was it not a signal he hadn’t lived his life to its fuller potential? Linus agreed that, yes, it probably was.”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“please take pity on an old man with a frail and fussy disposition, won’t you?”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist

“He was not an innocent, but felt that to speak of fornication as winnable sport was to demean and be demeaned at once, and there was always the question for him of, Why do this? When you could, as an alternative, not?”
― Patrick deWitt, The Librarianist