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ReadsALot

@readsalot-blog / readsalot-blog.tumblr.com

This Tumblr is dedicated to all the quotes and passages that impact me as a reader. All of them are from the reading I do daily. Some of the quotes are powerful voices and do not intend to offend anyone.
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Innocence involves an unseeing acceptance of things at face value, an ignorance of the area below the surface. In that humiliating moment I looked beyond myself and into the depths of another person. This was the beginning of compassion, and one cannot have both compassion and innocence.

Marigolds, Eugenia Collier

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Because it's not love to be static like the desert, not is it love to roam the world like the wind. And it's not love to see everything from a distance, like you do. Love is the force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reached through to it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had it's own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that's where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

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'That is what we call love,' the boy said, seeing that the wind was close to granting what he requested. 'When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you, and even men can turn themselves into the wind.'

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

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It is said that all people who are happy have God within them. And that happiness could be found in a grain of sand from the desert, as the alchemist had said. Because a grain of sand is a moment of creation, an the universe has taken millions of years to create it. 'Everyone on Earth has a treasure that awaits him,' his heart said. 'We, people's hearts, seldom say much about those treasures, because people no longer want to go in search of them. We speak of them only to children. Later, we simply let life procees, in its own direction, toward its own fate. But, unfortunately, very few follow the path laid out for them-- the path to their Personal Legends, and to happiness. Most people see the world as a threatening place, and, because they do, the world turns out indeed, to be a threatening place.'

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

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'There is only one way to learn,' the alchemist answered. 'It's through action.'

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

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We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it's our life or our possessions and property. But this fear avaoprates when we understand that our live stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

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He still had some doubts about the decision he had made. But he was able to understand one thing: making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

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The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

I've heard all the hype about this book so I figured I had better just add this to the summer reading pile. I read it, finally. This book was a quick read, one I definitely recommend. There were a few things that I noticed and liked about this book:

1. The main character was not named. In fact, there were very few named characters throughout the text. Why is this important and even attractive to the reader? Well, it brings forth this notion of universality. Since there is no name associated with the main character, he could be anyone; it could be me, or even you. Also, as a reader, it's less confusing to have many named main characters because you have to follow the trajectory as set forth by the author.

2. The sentence structure was simple, making it really easy to read. The vocabulary was that of a sixth grader. This is not to say that Coelho is incapable of sophisticated writing. Au contraire, my friends. It was a genius move to increase his audience and emphasize the universality. Because more people will understand the vernacular, more people will read it and promote it.

3. The spirituality of this book is compelling. Of course, being an avid PMA (positive mental attitude) book-reader, I have grown up with and practice the laws of success, including the law of attraction: Whatever you are is what you will attract. Whatever composes your thought process will sync in with the world and together, the world and your thoughts will acheive the ultimate goal.

There are two ways to read this book: 1.) to enjoy it as a fictional work and nothing more or 2.) to let this book move and change you, helping you to get one step closer to your Personal Legend. You decide.

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Am I making sense? If not, then at least I'm giving you a tiny glimse into the incoherence which enfolds me. Enfold: that's much too orderly a verb for where I am. All verbs are too orderly nowadays. Verbs seems like instruments of social engineering. Even to be is fascistic.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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Ah well. Our signs and omens grow more local, and the distance between the portent and what it portends diminishes to nothing. You step in dogshit - that's the warning and the calamity all in one! The bus breaks down, the mobile phone doesn't work. A tree is chopped down. Perhaps it all only means what it means. Ah well.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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When did I last say it to Oliver? I can't remember. After a few years, we got into the habit of dropping the "i". One of us would say, 'Love you,' and the other would say, 'Love you too.' There's nothing shocking about that, nothing out of the ordinary, but one day I caught myself wondering if it wasn't significant. As if you weren't taking responsibility for the feeling anymore. As if it had become somehow more general, less focused.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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Why do we like people? This one rather than that one, I mean. As I think I said before, when I was growing up, I used to like people because they liked me. That's to say, I would like them enormously if they were merely polite and decent to me. Lack of self-confidence. That's often why people get married the first time, if you ask me. They can't get over the fact that someone seems to like them, no questions asked.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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He likes the words rather than the thing themselves, you see.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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And he replied, not in one of his jokey voices, but straightforwardly, as if trying very hard to answer my question, 'The inexpressible sadness of things.' Do you think that's partly it? Inexpressibility, I mean? If depression is the place where words run out, then its inexpressibility must make your plight, your isolation, all the more unbearable. So you bravely say, 'Oh, I'm a bit down', or 'Feeling blue', but the words make it worse, not better.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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The lien between art and the suffering is a gilded cord which can bind a touch tightly. Another day, another dolour.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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I think this, also, about the comparison. people suppose that when they light a match, the hottest part of it is in the centre of the flame. This is a mistake. The hottest part of the flame is not inside it, but outside it, just above it, in fact. The hottest part is where the fire ends and the smoke begins, exactly there.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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'Marriage comes after love as smoke comes after fire.' You remember? Chamfort. Was he saying only that marriage is the inescapable consequence of love that we cannot have one without the other? A piece of wisdom that is not worth writing down, no? So he is inviting us to look at the comparison more exactly. He is saying, perhaps, that love is dramatic and hot and burning and noisy, while marriage is like a warm fog which stings your eyes and makes it impossible for you to see. He is saying perhaps also that marriage is something blowns about by the wind - that love is fierce and burns that ground it stands on, while marriage is a more incoherent condition which can be altered and dissipated by the lightest breeze.

Love, etc., Julian Barnes

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