12 Top Quotes from The little Paris Bookshop
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1. “Fear transforms your body like an inept sculptor does a perfect block of stone,” Perdu heard Vijaya’s voice say inside him. “It’s just that you’re chipped away at from within, and no one sees how many splinters and layers have been taken off you. You become ever thinner and more brittle inside, until even the slightest emotion bowls you over. One hug, and you think you’re going to shatter and be lost.” –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 130)
2. Now. It is only ever now. So do it, you coward. Breathe underwater at last. –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 187)
3. Habit is a vain and treacherous goddess. She lets nothing disrupt her rule. She smothers one desire after another: the desire to travel, the desire for a better job or a new love. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do. –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 208)
4. “All the love, all the dead, all the people we’ve known. They are the rivers that feed our sea of souls. If we refuse to remember them, that sea will dry up too.” –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 227)
5. “Do we only decide in retrospect that we’ve been happy? Don’t we notice when we’re happy, or do we realize only much later that we were?” –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 252)
6. “Do you know that there’s a halfway world between each ending and each new beginning? It’s called the hurting time, Jean Perdu. It’s a bog; it’s where your dreams and worries and forgotten plans gather. Your steps are heavier during that time. Don’t underestimate the transition, Jeanno, between farewell and new departure. Give yourself the time you need. Some thresholds are too wide to be taken in one stride.” –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 301)
7. I’ve suggested to the mayor that he read what he wants to read rather than what he thinks will impress people, and that he give up arranging his books according to the color of the binding, or in alphabetical order or by genre. He should group them by theme instead. –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 302)
8. The sea was the first thing he had found that was large enough to absorb his sorrow. –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 306)
9. And each time he abandoned himself to the sea another small grain of fear trickled out of him. It was his way of praying. –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 306)
10. One: eat well. No junk food, because it only makes you unhappy, lazy and fat. Two: sleep through the night (thanks to more exercise, less alcohol and positive thoughts). Three: spend time with people who are friendly and seek to understand you in their own particular way. –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 323)
11. “…a few days could contain a lifetime.” –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 330)
12. But life is never easy, and there are a thousand ways to live it. –– Nina George, The Little Paris Bookshop (pg. 347)
