"For many of us, the delights of reading are polychrome, and once we have entered this vibrant world we quite simply never want to leave."

"…I was thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature, a real goddess, in my eyes, as long as she took no notice of me. I ‘never told my love’ vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears: she understood me, at last, and looked a return - the sweetest of all imaginable looks - and what did I do? I confess it with shame - shrunk icily into myself, like a snail, at every glance retired colder and farther; till; finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp."

"I would stare at the grains of light suspended in that silent space, struggling to see into my own heart. What did I want? And what did others want from me? But I could never find the answers. Sometimes I would reach out and try to grasp the grains of light, but my fingers touched nothing."

“The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives. She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. She travelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”

So many writers have been forgotten over the ages, but for 2 centuries Austen has enthralled her readers. Men and women, teens and adults, academic professionals and those who read for fun: all turn to Austen time and again to find some nourishment for their literary souls that they can find nowhere else.
- Susannah Carson 

favourite films:
Beginners (2010)

All of these actors’ stories end sad. I can tell you that already, but that’s not a good thing.

teachingliteracy:

landofccolfer:

 The Picture of Dorian Gray

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.” 

left-nut:

untitled by dorotka kaczmarek on Flic r.

Confession: I have read Pride and Prejudice about 200 times. I get lost in the language–words like ‘thither’, ‘mischance’, ‘felicity’. I’m always in agony over whether Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are really going to get together. Read it – I know you’ll love it!