The collection / 39 fragments

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Passages, proverbs, and questions carried across the ages.

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01c. 2008 AD

Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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02c. 2008 AD

Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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03c. 2008 AD

Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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04c. 2008 AD

I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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05c. 2008 AD

What on earth did you say to Isola? She stopped in on her way to pick up Pride and Prejudice and to berate me for never telling her about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Why hadn't she known there were better love stories around? Stories not riddled with ill-adjusted men, anguish, death and graveyards!

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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06c. 2008 AD

Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person's name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and "fruitfulness" is drawn in.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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07c. 2008 AD

Then I imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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08c. 2008 AD

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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09c. 2008 AD

I have gone to [this bookshop] for years, always finding the one book I wanted - and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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10c. 2008 AD

Do you arrange your books alphabetically? (I hope not.)

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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11c. 2008 AD

I did not throw 'The Shepherd Boy Sings in the Valley of Humiliation' at the audience. I threw it at the elocution mistress. I meant to cast it at her feet, but I missed.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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12c. 2008 AD

She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty. (how I hope someone says that about me someday)!

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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13c. 2008 AD

Now that I think about it, maybe he is a werewolf. I can picture him lunging over the moors in hot pursuit of his prey, and I'm certain that he wouldn't think twice about eating an innocent bystander. I'll watch him closely at the next full moon. He's asked me to go dancing tomorrow--perhaps I should wear a high collar. Oh, that's vampires, isn't it? I think I am a little giddy. (After meeting Mr. Markham V. Reynolds, Jr.)

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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14c. 2008 AD

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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15c. 2008 AD

I did not want to spend my time reading about people who never were, doing things they never did.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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16c. 2008 AD

I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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17c. 2008 AD

All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged -- after all, what's good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it's a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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18c. 2008 AD

I don't know as much about children as I would like to. I am godmother to a wonderful three-year-old boy named dominic, the son of my friend Sophie. They live in Scotland, near Oban, and I don't get to see him often. I am always astonished, when I do, at his increasing personhood - no sooner had I gotten used to carrying about a warm lump of baby that he stopped being one started scurrying around on his own. I missed six months, and lo and behold, he learned how to talk! Now he talks to himself, which I find terribly endearing since I do, too.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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19c. 2008 AD

Yesterday, Amelia and Kit came over for supper, and we took a blanket down to the beach afterward to watch the moon rise. Kit loves to do that, but she always falls asleep before it is fully rise, and I carry her home to Amelia's house. She is certain she'll be able to stay awake all night as soon as she's five.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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20c. 2008 AD

I wish I’d known those words on the day I watched those German troops land, plane-load after plane-load of them—and come off ships down in the harbor! All I could think of was damn them, damn them, over and over. If I could have thought the words "the bright day is done and we are for the dark," I’d have been consoled somehow and ready to go out and contend with circumstance—instead of my heart sinking to my shoes.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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21c. 2008 AD

It is my belief that with two such men in the household and no way to meet others, Emily (Bronte)had to make Heathcliff up out of thin air! And what a fine job she did. Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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22c. 2008 AD

‎What a blight that woman is. Do you happen to know why? I lean toward a malignant fairy at her christening.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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23c. 2008 AD

But you want to know about the influence of books on my life, and as I’ve said, there was only one. Seneca. Do you know who he was? He was a Roman philosopher who wrote letters to imaginary friendstelling them how to behave for the rest of their lives.. Maybe that sounds dull, but the letters aren’t – they’re witty. I think you learn more if you’re laughing at the same time.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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24c. 2008 AD

When I got up this morning the sea was full of sun pennies - and now it all seems to be covered in lemon scrim. Writers ought to live far inland or next to the city dump, if they are ever to get any work one. Or perhaps they need to be stronger-minded than I am.

Mary Ann Shaffer / quote

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