Francis Spufford Inspirational Quotes (6)

We are supposed to be on the side of goodness in the sense that we need it, not that we are it.

Belief demands that you dispense with illusion after illusion, while contemporary common sense requires continual, fluffy pretending - pretending that might as well be systematic, it's so thoroughly incentivised by our culture.

Goblins burrowed in the earth, elves sang songs in the trees: Those were the obvious wonders of reading, but behind them lay the fundamental marvel that, in stories, words could command things to be.

Emotions can certainly be misleading: they can fool you into believing stuff that is definitely, demonstrably untrue.

I can always tell when you're reading somewhere in the house,' my mother used to say. 'There's a special silence, a reading silence.

You never came out the way you came in.