Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading Quotes

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We are what we love to read, and when we admit to loving a book, we admit that the book represents some aspect of ourselves truly, whether it is that we are suckers for romance or pining for adventure or secretly fascinated by crime.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

I took on a year of reading books for a reason. Because words are witness to life: they record what has happened, and they make it all real. Words create the stories that become history and become unforgettable. Even fiction portrays truth: good fict...

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

People share books they love. They want to spread to friends and family the goodness that they felt when reading the book or the ideas they found in the pages. In sharing a loved book, a reader is trying to share the same excitement, pleasure, chills...

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

Desire for a person is not the same thing as having that unique appreciation and need for them, nor is affection. Desire waxes and wanes, and affection can be felt without long-standing commitment. But 'You matter to me' means that the long haul is a...

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

Cyril Connolly, twentieth-century writer and critic, wrote that ‘words are alive and literature becomes an escape, not from, but into living.’ That was how I wanted to use books: as an escape back to life. I wanted to engulf myself in books and c...

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

Stories about lives remembered bring us backward while allowing us to move forward.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

Our house was open to anyone who needed a little extra support or comfort or just a home-cooked meal.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

I was scared of living a life not worth the living. Why did I deserve to live when my sister had died? I was responsible now for two lives, my sister's and my own, and, damn, I'd better live well.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

Sorrow is the violent smashing of reason, in that reason has no power over it.

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading

Remembrance is acknowledging that a life was lived ... My father finally wrote out his memories for a reason. I took on a year of reading books for a reason. Because words are witness to life: they record what has happened, and they make it all real....

Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading