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A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.

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Many a book is like a key to unknown chambers within the castle of one’s own self.

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I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow on the skull, why bother rea...more

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I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are ...more

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All I am is literature, and I am not able or willing to be anything else.

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Kill me, or you are a murderer.

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Books are a narcotic.

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I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us.

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I believe that we should only read those books that bite and sting us. If a book does not rouse us with a blow then why read it?

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We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished i...more

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My job is unbearable to me because it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is literature. Since I am nothing but literature and ca...more

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However, Gregor had become much calmer. All right, people did not understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer tha...more

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The door could not be heard slamming; they had probably left it open, as is the custom in homes where a great misfortune has occurred.

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And thus it happens that the reader, the closer he comes to the novel's end, the more he wishes he were back in the summer with which it begins, and f...more