ataraxia

“Part of my suspicion of rereading may come from a false sense of reading as conquest. As we polish off some classic text, we may pause a moment to think of ourselves, spear aloft, standing with one foot up on the flank of the slain beast. Another monster bagged. It would be somehow less heroic, as it were, to bend over and check the thing’s pulse. But that, of course, is the stuff of reading—the going back, the poring over, the act of committing something from the experience, whether it be mood or fact, to memory. It is in the postmortem where we learn how a book really works.” Ian Crouch, “The Curse of Reading and Forgetting” (via thelifeguardlibrarian)

“I’ve got a hangover.”
“No, you hit your head on the floor.”
“I can’t stay. I’ve got to rescue that fool Sophie.” Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones)

(Source: mylittlequotebox)

“Don’t you think I have sense enough to worry about my motives for saying the prayer? That’s exactly what’s bothering me so. Just because I’m choosy about what I want - in this case, enlightenment or peace, instead or money or prestige or game or any of those things, doesn’t mean I’m not as egotistical and self-seeking as everybody else. If anything, I’m more so!” J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey (via halfsthathalveyouinhalf)