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“As a matter of simple logic, there's no difference at all, that I can see, between the man who's greedy for material treasure —or even intellectual treasure — and the man who's greedy for spiritual treasure. As you say, treasure's treasure, God damn it, and it seems to me that ninety percent of all the world-hating saints in history were just as acquisitive and unattractive, basically, as the rest of us are.”
― Franny and Zooey
― Franny and Zooey
“Idolatry is not the use of images, but confusing them with what they represent, and in this respect mental images and lofty abstractions can be more insidious than bronze idols”
― The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
― The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
“Amalia smiled, and that smile, although a sad one, lit up her sombre face, made her silence eloquent and her strangeness familiar. It was like the telling of a secret, a hitherto closely guarded possession that could be taken back, but never taken back entirely.”
― The Castle
― The Castle
“I came to realize that there was no power capable of changing the image of my person lodged somewhere in the supreme court of human destinies; that this image (even though it bore no resemblance to me) was much more real than my actual self; that I was its shadow and not it mine; that I had no right to accuse it of bearing no resemblance to me, but rather that it was I who was guilty of the non-resemblance; and that the non-resemblance was my cross, which I could not unload on anyone else, which was mine alone to bear.”
― The Joke
― The Joke
“We don't get to say. Not if we want to save ourselves. We can't question everything. We have to be able to give the help that is asked for. Not what we think is needed. What is asked for. We justify ourselves with a thousand small acts of grace and charity. It's all meaningless. We want to be liked. To be liked. (He is staring out at the sea. He lifts one hand and lets it fall again) God. It goes beyond lacking all conviction. At the very core of despair is the conviction that convictions do not exist. That their reality exists solely in the claims of criminals and lunatics. I was on the beach last night and there was a bright light out to sea. I don't know what it was. A flare. Something. And I thought: What would happen if chaos should come? Would we be worse off? What if this were the sun misrisen at midnight. What if all order were suddenly in abeyance, the skies given over to the access of sudden random moons, everything mindless and migratory. So that all we knew was to be set aside and we found ourselves dwelling in a silent pandemonium. Would we be worse off? Would we be more damned under the transit of constellations unknown to us? What if we suddenly knew nothing? Nothing at all?”
― Whales and Men
― Whales and Men
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Peter’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Peter’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
228 books
|
76 friends
434 books
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566 friends
428 books
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5,802 friends
3 books
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2 friends
128 books
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50 friends
64 books
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33 friends
9 books
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89 friends
24 books
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30 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Peter
Lists liked by Peter
