Absence Of Books Quotes & Sayings

During the twenty years of Odesseus' absence, the people of Ithaca retained many recollections of him but never felt nostalgia for him. Whereas Odysseus did suffer nostalgia, and remembered almost nothing.
...
For four long books of the Odyssey he had retraced in detail his adventures before the dazzled Phaeacians. But in Ithaca he was not a stranger, he was one of their own, so it never occurred to anyone to say, 'Tell us! — Milan Kundera

It's strange, the lack of emotion, the absence of drama in reality. When things happen in real life, extraordinary things, there's no music, there's no dah-dah-daaahhs. There's no close-ups. No dramatic camera angles. Nothing happens. Nothing stops, the rest of the world goes on. — Kevin Brooks

It was a well-aimed arrow. Had anyone even noticed she was no longer at the library? All the people she'd worked with, worked for? All the patrons she'd helped? Had she been so replaceable that her absence hadn't caused a single ripple?
Hadn't she mattered at all? — Nora Roberts

I did not understand the pervasiveness of sin-how I simultaneously wove it and got caught in it, and just how far-reaching its effects were. We always assume that its great gnarled roots lie somewhere else; at least I know I did. I always felt certain that someone else was responsible for casting shadows on my vista. — Carolyn Weber

So much enthusiasm about the non-existence of God is somewhat bewildering, as no one appears to be nearly as excited about a similar absence of belief in unicorns, vampires, werewolves, astrology, nation-building, or the Labor Theory of Value. Nor is anyone dedicating much of their time to writing books and giving speeches at universities and conferences with the avowed goal of convincing others not to believe in them either. — Vox Day

I've always felt like my calling was to inspire people. And not with famed, epic accomplishments, but with imperfection, struggles and humanity. I want people to read my stories and books and blogs, and look at my life and say, She should have had nothing going for her. Meager means, questionable looks, no apparent safety nets and an absence of impressive letters after her name. But she followed her bliss anyway. If she can do it, I can do it. I'm not giving up. — Jennifer DeLucy

Johnny Mercer was my father's best friend and became mine as well. And Harold Arlen, whom I would call Uncle Harry, and Harry Warren: those were ones who I really became close to. — Margaret Whiting

Don't spend your life finding yourself. Create yourself. — Julie Bragonier Minnick

Here's to the future, he said and lifted the glass to his mouth. There was a lump of regret stuck in his throat as he spoke the words, but he washed it down with the whiskey. — Bette Lee Crosby

Life at the Shadowunter Academy was lacking in a lot of things Simon once belived he couldn't live without: computers, music, comic books, indoor plumbing. Over the past couple of months, he'd gotten mostly used to doing without, but there was one glaring absence he still couldn't wrap his head around. Shadowhunter Academy had no nerds. — Cassandra Clare

Graphomania (a mania for writing books) inevitably takes on epidemic proportions when a society develops to the point of creating three basic conditions: -
(1) an elevated level of general well being which allows people to devote themselves to useless activities
(2) a high degree of social atomization and , as a consequence, a general isolation of individuals;
(3) the absence of dramatic social changes in the nation's internal life. — Milan Kundera

I have often wondered how anyone who does not read, by which I mean daily, having some book going all the time, can make it through life. Indeed if I were required to make a sharp division in the very nature of people, I would be tempted to make it there: readers and nonreaders of books ... It is astonishing how the presence or absence of this habit so consistently characterizes an individual in other respects; it is as though it were a kind of barometer of temperament, of personality, even of character. Aside from that, for me it constituted something like sanity insurance. — William Brinkley

To be wise is to be eternally curious. — Frederick Buechner

You can never plan the future by the past. — Edmund Burke

I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction. — Tahereh Mafi

Inherent to socialism is the absence of choice. If I want to choose my own pretzels or books or iphones, they prevent me - they fine me, or imprison me. And those systems, not infrequently have historically, have developed into systems where there are pogroms. — Rand Paul

Acting forces me to socialise, which is good for me, I think. — Jesse Eisenberg

It isn't hard to find a person whom I could fall in love with, to give her romance. But it's hard to find such a person who would understand your view on life, accept who you really are and would truly care for you. — Marilyn Manson

But true love goes far deeper than that. It is an unexplainable connection of the heart, one that endures triumph and tragedy, pain and suffering, obstacles and loss. It is something that is either present or missing - there is no "almost", "in between", "most of the time." It is the unexplainable reason that some marriages entered into after one-week courtships can last a lifetime. Its absence is why "perfect" marriages fall apart. It can't be quantified or explained in science, religion, or philosophy. It can't be advised on by friends or marriage counselors who can't take their own advice. There are no rules, no how-to books, no guaranteed methods of success. It is not defined by vows or rings or promises of tomorrow. It is simply a miracle of God, that too few are blessed to experience. — Richard Doetsch

I'm very serious about no alcohol, no drugs. Life is too beautiful. — Jim Carrey

Most books fail, not so much from a want of ability in their authors, as from an absence in their productions of a thorough development of their ability. — Christian Nestell Bovee

Staring at screens is perhaps unavoidable, but the two-dimensional world makes little sense unless we can draw upon a mental armory that we have developed somewhere else. When we repeat the same words and phrases that appear in the daily media, we accept the absence of a larger framework. To have such a framework requires more concepts, and having more concepts requires reading. So get the screens out of your room and surround yourself with books. The characters in Orwell's and Bradbury's books could not do this - but we still can. What — Timothy Snyder

Now, if the writers of these four books [Gospels] had gone into a court of justice to prove an alibi, (for it is of the nature of an alibi that is here attempted to be proved, namely, the absence of a dead body by supernatural means,) and had they given their evidence in the same contradictory manner as it is here given, they would have been in danger of having their ears cropt for perjury, and would have justly deserved it. Yet this is the evidence, and these are the books, that have been imposed upon the world as being given by divine inspiration, and as the unchangeable word of God. — Thomas Paine

There is a world of difference, Lulu, between falling in love and being in love. — Gayle Forman

As one descendant of a black cowboy explained, "We didn't write the books. We didn't produce the movies. So we were politely deleted." There is a conspicuous absence of the black cowboy recorded in the history of the American cattle-ranching industry. The role these men played in the settling of the Old West deserves scholarly attention.
As — Tricia Martineau Wagner

One should write only those books from whose absence one suffers. In short: the ones you want on your own desk. — Marina Tsvetaeva

Books are like people. Some look deceptively attractive from a distance, some deceptively unappealing; some are easy company, some demand hard work that isn't guaranteed to pay off. Some become friends and say friends for life. Some change in our absence - or perhaps it is we who change in theirs - and we meet up again only to find that we don't get along any more. — Mark Haddon

After long absence, of return / To my dear home - Oh, happiness! / To lie in blissful consciousness / Of all around: The picture there - / The books - the flower-glass filled with care / By a kind hand - And then to know, / 'Twas but to rise, and meet below / Such a heart's welcome! — Caroline Anne Southey

We grew up creating this whole world view for ourselves because it's not there in the culture. What am I? And I have to build this world view in the absence of books, radio and television, anything, even conversation, Mom or Dad or brother or sister or friends. I have to build a world view of who I am or I go stark, raving mad. Every transsexual in the past has had to do this. — Kate Bornstein

Then you think there is no God?"
"No, I think there quite probably is one."
"Then why? ... "
Mustapha Mond checked him. "But he manifests himself in different ways to different men. In premodern times he manifested himself as the being that's described in these books. Now ... "
"How does he manifest himself now?" asked the Savage.
"Well, he manifests himself as an absence; as though he weren't there at all. — Aldous Huxley

I'm constantly reading books on God or the absence of God and atheism. — Liam Neeson

Surreal realized Daemon's madness was confined to emotions, to people, to that single tragedy he couldn't face. It was as if Titian had never died, as if Surreal hadn't spent three years whoring in back alleys before Daemon found her again and arranged for a proper education in a Red Moon house. He thought she was still a child, and he continued to fret about Titian's absence. But when she mentioned a book she was reading, he made a dry observation about her eclectic taste and proceeded to tell her about other books that might be of interest. It was the same with music, with art. They posed no threat to him, had no time frame, weren't part of the nightmare of Jaenelle bleeding on that Dark Altar. — Anne Bishop

Should books not have been there, hearsay would have been the best reading material! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The buddah can reside in the gears of a motorcycle as easily as in a flower on a mountaintop. To believe otherwise is to demean the buddah; which is to demean one's self. — Robert M. Pirsig

No-tech tourism is a form of temporal eco-tourism in which one reads books or watches film and TV precisely because of the absence of 21st-century technologies. — Douglas Coupland

Non-reading is not just the absence of reading. It is a genuine activity, one that consists of adopting a stance in relation to the immense tide of books that protects you from drowning. On that basis, it deserves to be defended and even taught. — Pierre Bayard

Fashion is very judgmental. It's something where you have to be careful. I have a long way to go before I can be a designer. I'd love to one day, but we'll see. — Sloane Stephens

...And there really are men who believe in this, who spend their time in promoting Leagues of Peace, in delivering addresses, and in writing books; and of course the governments sympathize with it all, pretending that they approve of it; just as they pretend to support temperance, while they actually derive the larger part of their income from intemperance; just as they pretend to maintain liberty of the constitution, when it is the absence of liberty to which they owe their power; just as they pretend to care for the improvement of the laboring classes, while on oppression of the workman rest the very foundations of the State; just as they pretend to uphold Christianity, when Christianity is subversive of every government. — Leo Tolstoy