by beatriceotto | Mar 22, 2018 | a quote to note
Orlando’s four hundred year span seems to boil down to the search for Life, Love and Authorship. Here she is learning that lovers aplenty may not be enough to provide either Life or Love (let alone Authorship). This is not the first time that it is to a dog she...
by beatriceotto | Feb 8, 2018 | a quote to note
How about that for a well-wishing phrase to fling into the world! May you enjoy both affluence of life and certainty of flow, as the strong, fine, kind Diana does. One of the most attractive characters in this book. Shame about the brother, though he did, after...
by beatriceotto | Oct 27, 2017 | a quote to note
A finely phrased evocation of the twin elements of human experience of time, every new morning or moment heralding good or bad for somebody somewhere. We can only work towards increasing and making the most of ‘new forces’ for gladness, genius and love....
by beatriceotto | Oct 27, 2017 | a quote to note
It has always interested me how life can turn on a sixpence, for better and worst. Adam Bede is one of the finest English novels, and it has a number of moments when events take a fateful turn. Here we have Adam recalling – all his life – exactly where...
by beatriceotto | Sep 21, 2017 | a quote to note
This refers to the looming death of the Brideshead patriarch, surrounded by his family. I was struck by the implication that the will to live gives strength, while the fear of death drains it. If you extend that, it might suggest that people are more motivated by...
by beatriceotto | Sep 21, 2017 | a quote to note
This response by Charles Ryder to his wife’s question is striking. While change is inevitable, I am not sure it is ‘evidence of life’. The dead also change. Yet given the state of his marriage when his wife posed the question, and the...
by beatriceotto | Jun 21, 2017 | a quote to note
Alice Herz-Sommer was a pianist also believed to be the oldest Holocaust survivor, living to 110. She combined an astonishing resilience and a passion for music, and the discipline of the piano she applies adroitly to the business of life. ‘The artist’s job is...
by beatriceotto | Jun 10, 2017 | readers & reading
Reading allows you to meet people, places, periods and perspectives you might never otherwise encounter, intensifying your experience of life. Yes. ‘That book taught me that by reading, I could live more intensely.’ Source: Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow...
by beatriceotto | Jun 8, 2017 | a quote to note
Time occupies my mind spaciously, and yet I’d never thought of it like this. Is it true? Think about your past, and whether you can divorce the recollection of time from the place where you experienced it. ‘You can’t remember time, only the places...
