Leitora à janela de Margaret Preston / Woman reading by Margaret Preston

The studio window,  Margaret Preston (1875 –1963)

O socialismo da biblioteca pública / The socialism of the public library

Alex Dukal

“I can’t think of a more egregious example of government-sponsored socialism than the public library. Unproductive citizens without two nickels to rub together are given access to millions of books they could never afford to buy on their own — all paid for with the tax dollars of productive citizens. Does the government pay for people to rent tuxedos for free, sail boats for free, or play golf for free? No, it does not. So why should it pay for people to read books and surf the Internet for free?”
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Edward Mcclelland, asking all the right questions

A leitora de Janet Hill / Woman reading by Janet Hill

Janet Hill

Os idiotas são tão cheios de certezas/ Idiots are always so sure of everything

E o mundo está tão cheio deles!

And there are so many in this world!

“The sign of intelligence is that you are constantly wondering. Idiots are always dead sure about every damn thing.”

Jaggi Vasudev

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A inteligência de não ter certezas: o sinal de inteligência é viver cheio de incertezas, levantando constantemente questões. Os idiotas estão sempre tão certos de tudo!)

A magia da leitura / The magic of reading

Violet Lemay

“When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.”

Paul Auster

“I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.”

John Steinbeck

O cão hoje já está cansado / Today the dog is already tired

Até amanhã. :)

Gato marcador de livros / Cat bookmark

Faz o teu próprio livro / Do it yourself books

Livros em estantes pela arte de Hector Toro / Bookshelves painted by Hector Toro

Hector Toro

Se as nossas janelas fossem Windows / If our windows were Windows

A bela leitora de Gabrielle Bakker / Woman with book by Gabrielle Bakker

Gabrielle Bakker

A leitora de Charles Lenoir / Woman reading by Charles Lenoir

Charles Lenoir (1860-1926)

8 Citações sobre livros / 8 Quotes about books

“Books may not change our suffering, books may not protect us from evil, books may not tell us what is good or what is beautiful, and they will certainly not shield us from the common fate of the grave. But books grant us myriad possibilities: the possibility of change, the possibility of illumination.”

Alberto Manguel, The Library at Night “Maybe this is why we read, and why in moments of darkness we return to books: to find words for what we already know.” Alberto Manguel, A Reading Diary: A Passionate Reader’s Reflections on a Year of Books “She loved to read and did so quite uncritically, taking each book as a prescription of sorts, an argument for a certain kind of life.”  Jennifer Egan, Invisible Circus “In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own.” Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life “In its silence, a book is a challenge: it can’t lull you with surging music or deafen you with screeching laugh tracks or fire gunshots in your living room; you have to listen to it in your head. A book won’t move your eyes for you the way images on a screen do. It won’t move your mind unless you give it your mind, or your heart unless you put your heart in it. It won’t do the work for you. To read a story well is to follow it, to act it, to feel it, to become it—everything short of writing it, in fact. Reading is not “interactive” with a set of rules or options, as games are; reading is actual collaboration with the writer’s mind. No wonder not everybody is up to it.” Ursula K. Le Guin, Harper’s Magazine  <><> <><> <><> “Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.” Jesse Lee Bennet (Os livros enquanto bússulas que nos orientam pela vida) “Nothing can do what a book can do. Lifts you out of your life… to a whole new world, whole new perspective. A book is like a dream you’re borrowing from a friend.” Dave Kellett “Few people ask from books what books can give us. Most commonly we come to books with blurred and divided minds, asking of fiction that it shall be true, of poetry that it shall be false, of biography that it shall be flattering, of history that it shall enforce our own prejudices. If we could banish all such preconceptions when we read, that would be an admirable beginning.” Virginia Woolf   <><> <><>

José Saramago pelo traço de Pedro Matos / Saramago by Pedro Matos

Pedro Matos

Artista português a viver em Londres.