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It has long been my belief that everyone's library contains an Odd Shelf. On this shelf rests a small, mysterious completely unrelated to the rest of the library, yet which, upon closer inspection, reveals a good deal about its owner.

Anne Fadiman

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Anne Fadiman
Age: 71
Born: 1953
Born: August 7
Author
Essayist
Journalist
New York City
New York
Upon
Mysterious
Owner
Everyone
Library
Rests
Long
Completely
Shelves
Good
Deal
Reveals
Deals
Contains
Rest
Odd
Unrelated
Small
Owners
Inspection
Belief
Closer
Shelf

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To use an electronics analogy, closing a book on a bookmark is like pressing the Stop button, whereas when you leave the book facedown, you've only pressed Pause.
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Pen-bereavement is a serious matter.
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I, on the other hand, believe that books, maps, scissors, and Scotch tape dispensers are all unreliable vagrants, likely to take off for parts unknown unless strictly confined to quarters.
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When the Irish novelist John McGahern was a child, his sisters unlaced and removed one of his shoes while he was reading. He did not stir. They placed a straw hat on his head. No response. Only when they took away the wooden chair on which he was sitting did he, as he puts it, 'wake out of the book'.
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The action most worth watching is not at the center of things, but where edges meet.
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For me, literature is a way of enlarging myself by learning about people who are not like me.
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One reason we have children I think is to learn that parts of ourselves we had given up for dead are merely dormant and that the old joys can re emerge fresh and new and in a completely different form.
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Reading aloud means no skipping, no skimming, no cutting to the chase.
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Americans admire success. Englishmen admire heroic failure
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If the soul cannot find its jacket. it is condemned to an eternity of wandering--naked and alone
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when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says Private - grownups keep out: a children sprawled on the bed, reading.
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In my view, nineteen pounds of old books are at least nineteen times as delicious as one pound of fresh caviar.
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I can imagine few worse fates than walking around for the rest of one's life wearing a typo.
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You can miss a lot by sticking to the point.
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Anyone who doubts that caffeine is a drug should read some of the prose composed under its influence.
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If my father were still writing essays, every full-grown 'girl' would probably be transformed into a'woman'.
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I'd rather have a book, but in a pinch I'll settle for a set of Water Pik instructions.
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When I visit a new bookstore, I demand cleanliness, computer monitors, and rigorous alphabetization. When I visit a secondhand bookstore, I prefer indifferent housekeeping, sleeping cats, and sufficient organizational chaos.
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Our view of reality is only a view, not reality itself.
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If you truly love a book, you should sleep with it, write in it, read aloud from it, and fill its pages with muffin crumbs.
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