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The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2) QUOTES

The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2) QUOTES

1 " Printer's ink has been running a race against gunpowder these many, many years. Ink is handicapped, in a way, because you can blow up a man with gunpowder in half a second, while it may take twenty years to blow him up with a book. But the gunpowder destroys itself along with its victim, while a book can keep on exploding for centuries. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

2 " A doctor is advertised by the bodies he cures. My business is advertised by the minds I stimulate. And let me tell you that the book business is different from other trades. People don't know they want books. I can see just by looking at you that your mind is ill for lack of books but you are blissfully unaware of it! "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

3 " Living in a bookshop is like living in a warehouse of explosives. Those shelves are ranked with the most furious combustibles in the world--the brains of men. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

4 " Books are the immortality of the race, the father and mother of most that is worth while cherishing in our hearts. To spread good books about, to sow them on fertile minds, to propagate understanding and a carefulness of life and beauty, isn't that high enough mission for a man? "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

5 " Overhead the night was a superb arch of clear frost, sifted with stars. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

6 " Der Hunger nach guten Büchern ist weiter verbreitet und hartnäckiger, als Sie glauben, aber in gewisser Weise trotzdem vielfach unbewusst. Die Menschen brauchen Bücher, wissen es aber nicht. Meistens wissen sie gar nicht, dass es die Bücher, die sie brauchen, überhaupt gibt. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

7 " Vede, i libri contengono i pensieri e i sogni degli uomini, le loro speranze e i loro sforzi e tutti i loro ruoli immortali. È attraverso i libri che la maggior parte di noi arriva a comprendere quanto la vita sia magnificamente degna di essere vissuta. [...] I libri rappresentano l'immortalità della razza, il padre e la madre di tutto quanto merita di essere nutrito nei nostri cuori. Diffondere buoni libri, seminarli in cervelli fertili, propagare la comprensione e l'amore per la vita e per la bellezza, non è questa una missione abbastanza alta per un uomo? Il libraio è realmente lo stendardo della verità. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

8 " Quando si strappano tutte le fibre della civiltà è un lavoro lento quello di ricucirle insieme. Vede quei bambini per la strada che vanno a scuola? La pace è nelle loro mani. Se a scuola viene loro insegnato che la guerra è il più odioso flagello cui possa anda soggetta l'umanità, che imbratta e deforma ogni amabile occupazione dello spirito mortale, allora si potrà avere qualche speranza per il futuro. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

9 " La notte ha una mistica affinità con la letteratura. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

10 " Il paradiso del mondo di là è incerto, ma vi è effettivamente un cielo su questa terra, un cielo nel quale abitiamo tutti quando leggiamo un buon libro. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

11 " ON THE RETURN OF A BOOK
LENT TO A FRIEND

I GIVE humble and hearty thanks for the safe return of this book which having endured the perils of my friend's bookcase, and the bookcases of my friend's friends, now returns to me in reasonably good condition.

I GIVE humble and hearty thanks that my friend did not see fit to give this book to his infant as a plaything, nor use it as an ash-tray for his burning cigar, nor as a teething-ring for his mastiff.

WHEN I lent this book I deemed it as lost: I was resigned to the bitterness of the long parting: I never thought to look upon its pages again.

BUT NOW that my book is come back to me, I rejoice and am exceeding glad! Bring hither the fatted morocco and let us rebind the volume and set it on the shelf of honour: for this my book was lent, and is returned again.

PRESENTLY, therefore, I may return some of the books that I myself have borrowed. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

12 " There is indeed a heaven on this earth, a heaven which we inhabit when we read a good book. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

13 " That's why I call this place the Haunted Bookshop. Haunted by the ghosts of the books I haven't read. Poor uneasy spirits, they walk and walk around me. There's only one way to lay the ghost of a book, and that is to read it. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

14 " Long ago I fell back on books as the only permanent consolers. They are the one stainless and unimpeachable achievement of the human race. It saddens me to think that I shall have to die with thousands of books unread that would have given me noble and unblemished happiness. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

15 " Between ourselves, there is no such thing, abstractly, as a 'good' book. A book is 'good' only when it meets some human hunger or refutes some human error. A book that is good for me would very likely be punk for you. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

16 " I wish there could be an international peace
conference of booksellers, for (you will smile at this) my own
conviction is that the future happiness of the world depends in no
small measure on them and on the librarians. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

17 " The human mind appears suddenly and inexplicably out of some unknown and unimaginable void. It passes half its known life in the mental chaos of sleep. Even when awake it is a victim of its own ill-adjustment, of disease, of age, of external suggestion, of nature's compulsions; it doubts its own sensations and trusts only in instruments and averages. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

18 " The beauty of being a bookseller is that you don't have to be a literary critic: all you have to do to books is enjoy them. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

19 " Man is unconquerable because he can make even his helplessness so entertaining. His motto seems to be "Even though He slay me, yet will I make fun of Him! "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)

20 " Mr. Gilbert had the earnest mania for self-improvement which has blighted the lives of so many young men. "

― Christopher Morley , The Haunted Bookshop (Parnassus, #2)