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The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Book by Sara Gran · 13 quotes · Books, Money, Sex

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The Book of the Most Precious Substance Quotes

“I'd been so alone that I'd thought it was just the feeling of life when it went on too long.”

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Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“What I'd loved was what money could make happen. Money could buy you things, but more so, buy you time: time to travel, to write, to read, to walk, to have sex.”

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Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“Once you had rent and food covered, all the money in the world couldn't bring you what mattered. But it sure as hell could make life without it easier.”

Book:The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“This was starting to be fun--strange and wealthy men barking instructions at me, and me ignoring those instructions. Not a bad hobby.”

Power Independence Defiance

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Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“Much of my life was a dreary grind in which I was responsible for everything, always. For someone else to take that responsibility, even for a few minutes, was pure pleasure.”

Letting Go Relax Submission

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Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“I don't believe in answers. I don't believe in big sweeping philosophies. All the great men of history tried to make these absolute laws, answer all the big questions, and they were always wrong. There's no big answers out there, not that we can understand. I think the thing is just to somehow accept that life doesn't always make sense. Terrible things can happen. It's ridiculous to try to spin it. I mean, maybe in the grand sense, you know, when we all come out to take our bows at the end, it'll all seem logical and wonderful. But in the meantime, life can fucking hurt. We need to be there for each other. That's the real magical act--making someone a sandwich, cleaning the flat.”

Life Answers Meaning Of Life

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“I had thousands of books in my house and never found anything I wanted to read. I would stare at the shelves of books like a hungry person staring into an open refrigerator and wait for something to speak to me. But nothing ever spoke.”

Reading Books Ennui Reading Slump

Book:The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“With a little sadness, I now saw I'd come to dread and resent books, every last one. It was a loss. Opening a book had always been like opening a window into a new and mysterious world. When I was a child my books were my best friends. ... Books had been the most lasting, profound relationship in my life. I'd long bought and sold a few books for extra money. But once I'd started selling them out of desperation, not luck or love, I'd come to wordlessly feel like even my love of books--like everything else I'd loved--had turned on me and become ugly.”

Books Resentment Lost Love

Book:The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“We weren't monogamous out of obligation. We were monogamous because we wanted each other more than anyone else. We were monogamous because no one else could compare.”

Sex Monogamy The One Monogamous

Book:The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“Abel wanted to know all about flesh and how it responded to skin, tongue, velvet, fur, lips. His enthusiasm was contagious. I'd been a good-enough lover before, but Abel inspired my curiosity and my lust. Sex wasn't just better than I'd ever known it could be; it was more interesting. There were tools to explore, sensations to try, tastes and textures to experiment with, states of consciousness to achieve or discard.”

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Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“Most friends had fallen away over the years. Either they'd started avoiding me, as if my grief and bad luck were contagious, or I'd started to avoid them, unwilling to give them the chance to disappoint me. Besides, too much time around normal people made me feel like an alien, unwanted and ugly, fluent in a different language.”

Outcast Misfit Fairweather Friends

Book:The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“Well," he said, "I'm guessing your client is either a magician or a pervert. And I mean both of those terms with the highest respect.”

Magic Magician Pervert Sex Magic

Book:The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance

“It was this idea that books contained secrets. Important information that would be lost if someone didn't preserve it. And then I studied history and got really into that and I realized that was true not just about sex but lots of things. If someone doesn't care about books, shit gets lost. And then I became a librarian. And archivist.”

Books Conservation Librarians Librarianship Archivists

Book:The Book of the Most Precious Substance

Source: The Book of the Most Precious Substance