Ex Libris Kirkland

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Subtitle A Novel
First Written 2004
Genre Fiction
Origin US
Publisher Picador
My Copy hardbound with dustjacket
First Read September 15, 2005

Gilead



You can love a bad book for its haplessness or pomposity or gall, if you have that starveling appetite for things human, which I devoutly hope you never will have. 'The full soul loatheth an honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.' There are pleasures to be found where you would never look for them. That's a bit of fatherly wisdom, but it's also the Lord's truth, and a thing I know from my own long experience.

Quoted on September 28, 2011

The ashes turned liquid in the rain and the men who were working in the ruins got entirely black and filthy, till you would hardly know one from another. My father brought me some biscuit that had soot on it from his hands. 'Never mind,' he said, 'there's nothing cleaner than ash.'

Quoted on September 28, 2011

So creating proofs from experience of any sort is like building a ladder to the moon. It seems that it should be possible, until you stop to consider the nature of the problem. . . The Lord gave you a mind so that you would make honest use of it. I'm saying you must be sure that the doubts and questions are your own, not, so to speak, the mustache and walking stick that happen to be the fashion of any particular moment.

Quoted on September 28, 2011

He seems to me to be a bit of a scribe himself, scorning and rebuking the way he does. How do you tell a scribe from a prophet, which is what he clearly takes himself to be? The prophets love the people they chastise, a thing this writer does not appear to me to do.

Quoted on September 28, 2011


Ex Libris Kirkland is a super-self-absorbed reading journal made by Matt Kirkland. Copyright © 2001 - .
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