“I like to think the world wasn’t ready for me, but maybe the truth is that I wasn’t ready for the world. I’ve always arrived too late for my life.”
— The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
(Source: idontknowwhattonamemytumblr)
I came across a list titled "1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die", and immediately I succumbed to the challenge. This blog is the journal of my progress through one thousand and one significant works of literature.
• About This Blog
• The List
• Progress
• Help Desk
• Quotes, Commentaries, and Captions
The Thousand and One Books
• About This Blog
• The List
• Progress
• Help Desk
• Quotes, Commentaries, and Captions
The Thousand and One Books
“It’s one of those unforgettable moments as a child, when you discover that all along the world has been betraying you.”
—
Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
(Source: sputniked)
“If at large gatherings or parties, or around people with whom you feel distant, your hands sometimes hang awkwardly at the ends of your arms - if you find yourself at a loss for what to do with them, overcome with sadness that comes when you recognize the foreignness of your own body - it’s because your hands remember a time when the division between mind and body, brain and heart, what’s inside and what’s outside was much less. It’s not that we’ve forgotten the language of gestures entirely. The habit of moving our hands while we speak is left over from it. Clapping, pointing, giving the thumbs up : all artifacts of ancient gestures. Holding hands, for example, is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together. And at night, when it’s too dark to see, we find it necessary to gesture on each other’s body to make ourselves understood.”
— Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
“I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. It took seven languages to make me; it would be nice if I could have spoken just one. But I couldn’t, so he leaned down and kissed me.”
— The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
(Source: hellogray)
“An average of seventy-four species become extinct every day, which is one good reason but not the only one to hold someone’s hand, and the next thing that happened was we kissed each other, and I found I knew how, and I felt happy and sad in equal parts, because I knew that I was falling in love, but it wasn’t with him.”
— The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
“I might as well be looking for a needle in a haystack or a Jew in Poland.”
— The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
“I used to let the door slam in people’s faces. I farted where I wanted to fart. I accused cashiers of cheating me out of a penny, while hiding the penny in my hand. And then one day I realized on was on my way to being the sort of schmuck who poisons pigeons. People crossed the street to avoid me. I was a human cancer. And to be honest: I wasn’t really angry. Not anymore. I had left my anger somewhere long ago. Put it down on a park bench and walked away. And yet. It had been so long, I didn’t know any other way of being. One day I woke up and said to myself: It’s not too late. The first days were strange. I had to practice smiling in front of the mirror. But it came back to me. It was as if a weight had been lifted. I let go, and something let go of me.”
— The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
“I want to say somewhere: I’ve tried to be forgiving. And yet. There were times in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, and I invited it in. I scowled at the world. And the world scowled back. We were locked in a stare of mutual disgust.”
— The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
(Source: idontknowwhattonamemytumblr)
“Once upon a time there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword. A pebble could be a diamond. A tree a castle.
Once upon a time there was a boy who lived in a house across the field from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light, her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark they parted with leaves in their hair.
Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. When they were ten he asked her to marry him. When they were eleven he kissed her for the first time. When they were thirteen they got into a fight and for three weeks they didn’t talk. When they were fifteen she showed him the scar on her left breast. Their love was a secret they told no one. He promised her he would never love another girl as long as he lived. What if I die? she asked. Even then, he said. For her sixteenth birthday he gave her an English dictionary and together they learned the words. What’s this? he’d ask, tracing his index finger around her ankle, and she’d look it up. And this? he’d ask, kissing her elbow. Elbow! What kind of word is that? and then he’d lick it, making her giggle. What about this? he asked, touching the soft skin behind her ear. I don’t know, she said, turning off the flashlight and rolling over, with a sigh, onto her back. When they were seventeen they made love for the first time, on a bed of straw in a shed. Later—when things happened that they could never have imagined—she wrote him a letter that said: When will you learn that there isn’t a word for everything?”
The History of Love, Nicole Krauss
