Nicholas Chen

“Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.”
― Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet

“We ate well and cheaply and drank well and cheaply and slept well and warm together and loved each other.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.”
― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
― Henry David Thoreau