A Selection of Quotes That I've Enjoyed Recently

Its people are the unmapped attractions of Ireland.  

Niall Williams & Christine Breen

The Pipes Are Calling

pg. 178

This was a beach at the beginning of the world, I thought.  For here on these printless windblown sands was the untouched wild beauty of the earth and sea, unspoiled.  This is what Ireland offers.  The power and peace of this kind of beauty is more inspiring than anything.  

Niall Williams & Christine Breen

The Pipes Are Calling

pg. 213

The body is an organ of memory, holding traces of all our experiences.  The land, too, carries the burden of all its changes.  To truly see and understand a landscape is to see its depth as well as its smooth surfaces, its beauty and its scars.  

Kristen Iversen

Full Body Burden

pg. 338

One of the many things I love about bound books is their sheer physicality.  Electronic books live out of sight and out of mind.  But printed books have body, presence.  Sure, sometimes they'll elude you by hiding in improbable places: in a box full of old picture frames, say, or in the laundry basket, wrapped in a sweatshirt.  But at other times they'll confront you, and you'll literally stumble over some tomes you hadn't thought about in weeks or years.  I often seen electronic books, but they never come after me.  They may make me feel, but I can't feel them.  They are all soul with no flesh, no texture, and no weight.  They can get in your head but can't whack you upside it.  

Will Schwalbe

The End of Your Life Book Club

pg. 42-43

In an era of computers, there's something deeply poignant about a political prisoner with his scraps of paper, about a prison convulsed in the hunt for a pen, and about [Karen] Connelly's recognition of the importance of the written and printed word.  It's easy to forget in our wired world that there are not just places like prisons where electronic text is forbidden, but whole countries, like Burma, where an unregistered modem will land you in jail or worse.  Freedom can still depend on ink, just as it always has.  

Will Schwalbe

The End of Your Life Book Club

pg. 132

There are all kinds of serendipities in bookstores, starting with Alphabetical: while looking for one novel, you might remember that you'd always meant to read something by another author whose last name shared the first two letters.  Visual: the shiny jacket on this book might catch your eye.  Accidental: superstitiously, I almost always feel the need to buy any book that I knock over.  And Prompted: both Mom and I gave very serious consideration to any book placed in the "staff recommends" section, particularly if it sported a yellow stickie (aka Post-it note) or a handwritten shelf talker - a bookstore neologism I love, because it conjures such a vivid image of a shelf talking to you, or of a person who talks to shelves.  

Will Schwalbe

The End of Your Life Book Club

pb. 140