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Quote by Diane Setterfield

Work

The Thirteenth Tale

A gripping tale that intertwines the lives of a reclusive author and a young bookseller, delving into the mysteries of a long-lost manuscript and the secrets of a tragic past. more

Author

Diane Setterfield
Diane Setterfield

Diane Setterfield is a British author born on August 22, 1964. Her works are known for their unique narrative style and profound insights into human nature. Her debut novel, 'The Time Traveler's Wife,' published in 2007, quickly gained popularity and critical acclaim, becoming an international bestseller. more

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“The books we read help to shape who we are. Reading offers us, as children, our first independence- allowing us to travel far beyond the confines of our immediate world. Books introduce us to great figures in history, narratives that stir our spirit, fictions that tug us out of ourselves and into the lives of a thousand others, and visions of every era through which human beings have lived. And in the process of stretching who we are, books also connect us to all others- of our own or previous times- who have read what we've read. In the community of readers, we instantly become linked to those who share our love for specific characters or passages. A well-composed book,' says Caroline Gordon, 'is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.”

“I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow on the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.”