Joanne Harris

"Wine talks; ask anyone. The oracle at the street corner; the uninvited guest at the wedding feast; the holy fool. It ventriloquizes. It has a million voices. It unleashes the tongue, teasing out secrets you never meant to tell, secrets you never even knew. It shouts, rants, whispers. It speaks of great plans, tragic loves, and terrible betrayals. It screams with laughter. It chuckles softly to itself. It weeps in front of its own reflection. It revives summers long past and memories best forgotten. Every bottle a whiff of other times, other places, everyone... a humble miracle""

Joanne Harris

Matthew Sturges

"It’s the longing that ultimately undoes you. When it finds you, it gnaws at your bones and tugs at your chest. It fills you up inside and makes you dream dreams and then it drowns you. It keeps you in bed, clutching at your sheets while the world goes on outside. It smells like old leaves and cigarette smoke, mixed with the scent of far-off places you will hear of, but never see. It’s the gloss on a lover’s lips the moment you realize you will never actually kiss them. It is the bittersweet, unrequited love of creation and it will break your heart again and again and again. If you know the longing the way I do, then these words are redundant. We understand each other perfectly, you and I."

Matthew Sturges

Catherine Jenkin

“get me to the cliff”, you said.
i need to scream until my voice breaks and the rocks fall down.
way down. all the way down to the river.
and then, maybe then, i will feel better. feel whole. feel released.
and when i’m done doing that,
i’ll push you into the gorge because my freedom would have been won by you,
not me.
if you’re going to witness my pain and my joy, i don’t want you near me."

Catherine Jenkin

Carrie Letet

"Souls wouldn't wear suits and ties, they'd wear blue jeans and sit cross-legged with a glass of red wine."

Carrie Letet

George R.R. Martin

"The best fantasy is written in the language of dreams. It is alive as dreams are alive, more real than real ... for a moment at least ... that long magic moment before we wake.

Fantasy is silver and scarlet, indigo and azure, obsidian veined with gold and lapis lazuli. Reality is plywood and plastic, done up in mud brown and olive drab. Fantasy tastes of habaneros and honey, cinnamon and cloves, rare red meat and wines as sweet as summer. Reality is beans and tofu, and ashes at the end. Reality is the strip malls of Burbank, the smokestacks of Cleveland, a parking garage in Newark. Fantasy is the towers of Minas Tirith, the ancient stones of Gormenghast, the halls of Camelot. Fantasy flies on the wings of Icarus, reality on Southwest Airlines. Why do our dreams become so much smaller when they finally come true?

We read fantasy to find the colors again, I think. To taste strong spices and hear the songs the sirens sang. There is something old and true in fantasy that speaks to something deep within us, to the child who dreamt that one day he would hunt the forests of the night, and feast beneath the hollow hills, and find a love to last forever somewhere south of Oz and north of Shangri-La.

They can keep their heaven. When I die, I'd sooner go to middle Earth."

George R.R. Martin

Jade Townsend

"At some point in your life you must decide whether you want to impress people or influence people. You can impress people from a distance, but you must get close to influence them, and when you do that, they will be able to see your flaws. And that's ok."

Jade Townsend

Seneca

"And this, too, affords no small occasion for anxieties - if you are bent on assuming a pose and never reveal yourself to anyone frankly, in the fashion of many who live a false life that is all made up for show; for it is torturous to be constantly watching oneself and be fearful of being caught out of our usual role. And we are never free from concern if we think that every time anyone looks at us he is always taking-our measure; for many things happen that strip off our pretence against our will, and, though all this attention to self is successful, yet the life of those who live under a mask cannot be happy and without anxiety. But how much pleasure there is in simplicity that is pure, in itself unadorned, and veils no part of its character! Yet even such a life as this does run some risk of scorn, if everything lies open to everybody; for there are those who disdain whatever has become too familiar. But neither does virtue run any risk of being despised when she is brought close to the eyes, and it is better to be scorned by reason of simplicity than tortured by perpetual pretence."

Seneca

Elizabeth Wurtzel

"I start to feel like I can't maintain the facade any longer, that I may just start to show through. And I wish I knew what was wrong. Maybe something about how stupid my whole life is. I don't know. Why does the rest of the world put up with the hypocrisy, the need to put a happy face on sorrow, the need to keep on keeping on?... I don't know the answer, I know only that I can't. I don't want any more vicissitudes, I don't want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I've had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted."

Elizabeth Wurtzel

John Welwood

"A soul connection is a resonance between two people who respond to the essential beauty of each other's individual natures, behind their facades, and who connect on this deeper level. This kind of mutual recognition provides the catalyst for a potent alchemy. It is a sacred alliance whose purpose is to help both partners discover and realize their deepest potentials. While a heart connection lets us appreciate those we love just as they are, a soul connection opens up a further dimension -- seeing and loving them for who they could be, and for who we could become under their influence. This means recognizing that we both have an important part to play in helping each other become more fully who we are....A soul connection not only inspires us to expand, but also forces us to confront whatever stands in the way of that expansion."

John Welwood

Gloria Naylor

"Time's passage through the memory is like molten glass that can be opaque or crystallize at any given moment at will: a thousand days are melted into one conversation, one glance, one hurt, and one hurt can be shattered and sprinkled over a thousand days. It is silent and elusive, refusing to be dammed or dripped out day by day; it swirls through the mind while an entire lifetime can ride like foam on the deceptive, transparent waves and get sprayed onto the consciousness at ragged, unexpected intervals."

Gloria Naylor

Penelope J. Stokes

"Because our hearts are unprepared for truth, we cling to the deception as a shipwreck victim on a storm-tossed sea will grab at anything that floats. But the splintered rubble of our broken trust - those temporary buoys of our shattered dreams - betray us, gouging rough gashes into our souls, drawing our blood and leaving us to sink."

Penelope J. Stokes

Rebecca Wells

"Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to. This is something that I've struggled with my whole life long."

Rebecca Wells

Marilyn French

"Desire consumes you, it takes you over. You forget yourself completely. All you can think about is the other, the one you desire, your self is just a fire."

Marilyn French

"Life is a disease: sexually transmitted, and invariably fatal."

Neil Gaiman

"You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit."

Oscar Wilde

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

Ernest Hemingway

"Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak. Probably so we can think twice."

Bill Watterson

e.e cummings

"i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)"

e.e. cummings

J.R.R. Tolkien

"All we have is to decide what to do with the time that is given to us."

J.R.R. Tolkien

Rainer Maria Rilke

"Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love."

Rainer Maria Rilke

David Benioff

"I've always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed."

David Benioff

Winston S. Churchill

"Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb."

Winston S. Churchill

Winston S. Churchill

"I cannot pretend to be impartial about the colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones, and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns."

Winston S. Churchill

Sarah Arthur

"...we hunger for other worlds. We long to go beyond the streets we know, beyond our familiar woods and fields, and into the land of Faerie; to Middle-earth, Narnia, or Summerland; to the kingdom east of the sun and west of the moon. This longing isn’t incidental."

Sarah Arthur

Lewis Carroll

"Alice: Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
That depends a good deal on where you want to get to, said the Cat.
I don't much care where- said Alice.
Then it doesn't matter which way you go, said the Cat."

Lewis Carroll

Robin Jones Gunn

"You know what I think? I think that if a young woman doesn't engage in the act of occasionally wishing on a star or a flower or a birthday cake full of candles, then we're forfeiting one of the sweetest whimsies of our youth."

Robin Jones Gunn

Kim Edwards

"...and the distance between them, millimeters only, the space of a breath, opened up and deepened, became a cavern at whose edge he stood."

Kim Edwards

Charlotte Brontë

"Sometimes I have the strangest feeling about you. Especially when you are near me as you are now. It feels as though I had a string tied here under my left rib where my heart is, tightly knotted to you in a similar fashion. And when you go ... with all that distance between us, I am afraid that this cord will be snapped, and I shall bleed ... "

Charlotte Brontë

Orson Scott-Card

"To reach out to you when I'm in need, and to try to be here for you when you need me back. And to feel such tenderness when I look at you that I want to stand between you and all the world: and yet also to lift you up and carry you above the strong currents of life; and at the same time, I would be glad to stand always like this, at a distance, watching you, the beauty of you."

Orson Scott-Card

CS Lewis

"When the two people who thus discover that they are on the same secret road are of different sexes, the friendship which arises between them will very easily pass – may pass in the first half hour – into erotic love. Indeed, unless they are physically repulsive to each other or unless one or both already loves elsewhere, it is almost certain to do so sooner or later. And conversely, erotic love may lead to Friendship between the lovers. But this, so far from obliterating the distinction between the two loves, puts it in a clearer light. If one who was first, in the deep and full sense, your Friend, is then gradually or suddenly revealed as also your lover you will certainly not want to share the Beloved’s erotic love with any third. But you will have no jealousy at all about sharing the Friendship. Nothing so enriches an erotic love as the discovery that the Beloved can deeply, truly and spontaneously enter into Friendship with the Friends you already had; to feel that not only are we two united by erotic love but we three or four or five are all travelers on the same quest, have all a common vision."

C.S. Lewis

Gena Showalter

"Ten Things You Shouldn't Say on a Date.
1. You're wearing that?
2. Something smells funny.
3. Where's the Tylenol?
4. And to think, I first wanted to date your brother.
5. I have a confession to make…
6. My dad has a suit just like that.
7. That man is hot. Look at him.
8. My ex, may he rot in hell forever…
9. You're going to order that? Seriously?
10. You're how old?"

Gena Showalter

On Fatherhood

"What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up in the stars."

Jodi Picoult

"With that in mind, I try to imagine the greatest gift I could've given my father. And as sleep descends on me, the answer seems strangely clear: my faith in his idols. That was what he wanted all along - to feel that we were united by something permanent, to know that as long as he and I believed in the same thing, we would never be apart."

Ian Caldwell

"We went up and up into the heavens until people were just dots below us. As we hung right at the top--the twinkling electric lights below mingling with the stars--Father said something I will never forget. He said, 'See here, Queenie. Look around. You've got the whole world at your feet, lass.'"

Andrea Levy


"...I've made it my business to observe fathers and daughters. And I've seen some incredible, beautiful things. Like the little girl who's not very cute - her teeth are funny, and her hair doesn't grow right, and she's got on thick glasses - but her father holds her hand and walks with her like she's a tiny angel that no one can touch. He gives her the best gift a woman can get in this world: protection. And the little girl learns to trust the man in her life. And all the things that the world expects from women - to be beautiful, to soothe the troubled spirit, heal the sick, care for the dying, send the greeting card, bake the cake - all of those things become the way we pay the father back for protecting us..."

Adriana Trigiani


"There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them."

Harper Lee

CS Lewis

"Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives."

"Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival."

"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted."

CS Lewis

Unknown

"Never let a win get to your head, or a loss to your heart."

Unknown

James Kavanaugh

"I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter.
We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love. For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves."

James Kavanaugh

Tom Stoppard

"It is a defect of God's humor that he directs our hearts everywhere but to those who have a right to them."

Tom Stoppard

Leona Blair

"She loved him. It was a pale description of how she felt, but she could find no other words. To watch him, to hear him, to simply be in the same space with him made her heart sing."

Leona Blair

This week's selections

1. Train to Trieste - Dominica Radulescu
2. People of the Book - Catherine Brooks
3. The Shawshank Redemption - Stephen King [re-read]
4. Red Dragon - Thomas Harris [re-read]
5. Chocolat - Joanne Harris [re-read]
6. Under an English Heaven - Robert Radcliffe
7. Madame de Pompadour: Mistress of France - Christine Pevitt Algrant
8. I Know This Much is True - Wally Lamb
9. The Roaring of the Labyrinth - Clio Gray
10. But Inside I'm Screaming - Elizabeth Flock
11. The Olive Readers - Christine Aziz
12. The Girl who Played with Fire - Stieg Larsson

You can read up on any of these titles by clicking here.