Quote of the Day (Christopher Morley, on Books’ ‘Instant and Irresistible’ Appeal)
“A queer thing about books, if you open your heart
to them, is the instant and irresistible way they follow you with their appeal.
You know at once, if you are clairvoyant in these matters (libre-voyant, one
might say), when you have met your book. You may dally and evade, you may go on
about your affairs, but the paragraph of prose your eye fell upon, or the
snatch of verses, or perhaps only the spirit and flavour of the volume, more
divined than reasonably noted, will follow you. A few lines glimpsed on a page
may alter your whole trend of thought for the day, reverse the currents of the
mind, change the profile of the city.” — American journalist, novelist,
essayist and poet Christopher Morley (1890-1957), “On Visiting Bookshops,” in Pipefuls
(1920)
“A queer thing about books, if you open your heart
to them, is the instant and irresistible way they follow you with their appeal.
You know at once, if you are clairvoyant in these matters (libre-voyant, one
might say), when you have met your book. You may dally and evade, you may go on
about your affairs, but the paragraph of prose your eye fell upon, or the
snatch of verses, or perhaps only the spirit and flavour of the volume, more
divined than reasonably noted, will follow you. A few lines glimpsed on a page
may alter your whole trend of thought for the day, reverse the currents of the
mind, change the profile of the city.” — American journalist, novelist,
essayist and poet Christopher Morley (1890-1957), “On Visiting Bookshops,” in Pipefuls
(1920)
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