Quotes of: Bernard Keyword

I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

The Art of Pokemon, the Movie: Mewtwo Strikes Back!

As centuries of dictators have known, an illiterate crowd is the easiest to rule; since the craft of reading cannot be untaught once it has been acquired, the second-best recourse is to limit its scope.

A History of Reading

I won’t stay,” I warned him. “I won’t try to fight for you anymore. This is it. If you walk away it’s not for me. I won’t ever think that. I will always, always blame you for this. For ruining us.

Hero

Lexie, I practically sold my soul to get where I am today. I’m a selfish bastard … and you …” His eyes washed over my face. “You’ve already lost everything to keep your soul intact.

Hero

A woman's destiny, they say, is not fulfilled until she holds in her arms her own little book.

Headhunting In The Solomon Islands: Around The Coral Sea

Just as a good rain clears the air, a good writing day clears the psyche.

The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

While persistence offers no guarantees, it does give 'luck' a chance to operate.

The Road to Middle-Earth: How J.R.R. Tolkien Created A New Mythology

Even after she was gone, he passed her place each day: something white in a high window - not a face, but the white belly of a pigeon beating its wings against the pane in the boarded-up house.

The Secret

All the joys—animal and human—of a free life are mine. I have escaped everything that is artificial, conventional, customary. I am entering into the truth, into nature.

Noa Noa

One breath taken completely; one poem, fully written, fully read - in such a moment, anything can happen.

Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry

I am too much of a skeptic to deny the possibility of anything.

Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley - Volume 1

Old books that we have known but not possessed cross our path and invite themselves over. New books try to seduce us daily with tempting titles and tantalizing covers.

The Library at Night

I like to imagine that, on the day after my last, my library and I will crumble together, so that even when I am no more I'll still be with my books.

The Library at Night

In my fool hardy youth, when my friends were dreaming of heroic deeds in the realms of engineering and law, finance and national politics, I dreamt of becoming a librarian.

The Library at Night

In the dark, with the windows lit and the rows of books glittering, the library is a closed space, a universe of self-serving rules that pretend to replace or translate those of the shapeless universe beyond.

The Library at Night

A library is an ever-growing entity; it multiples seemingly unaided, it reproduces itself by purchase, theft, borrowings, gifts, by suggesting gaps through association, by demanding completion of sorts.

The Library at Night

Entering a library, I am always stuck by the way in which a certain vision of the world is imposed upon the reader through its categories and its order.

The Library at Night

The words went round and round and round in my mind and my body, until I knew they were no longer my words but something that had been carved into my heart. And now my soul was crying.

Strangeland

A made desire to be more human, to be more normal, that's what pushes me, these days - but as someone said the other say. 'Trace, you're going to have to face facts. You and normal parted a lomg, long time ago.

Strangeland

If we are to know ourselves, philosophy needs to maintain an ongoing dialogue with the sciences of mind.

Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought

Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.

A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader's Reflections on a Year of Books