Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you I was totally innocent of all wrong doings. I most certainly was not. I was a total asshole during this time. I was absolutely losing my fucking mind. I swam in a sea of anger whose waters were far wider than I could have ever imagined, and I sank to depths I didn't know I was capable of reaching. I said the most terrible things. I hated her, and I hated myself even more for hating the one I loved. My whole life became just pissing in the wind. Everything I did backfired on me. My life was at a giant standstill, and I was standing in purgatory. Fuck, even lying in a bush during a rainstorm didn't feel strange. The crazy part was that it was more comfortable than facing the guy in the mirror at home. I came to hate my ex, but I hated myself the most. I was disgusted at who I had become. Who was this fucking broken down drunk

Our purpose, like a ball, was designed to have more momentum than to be at a standstill.

My life came to a standstill. I could breathe, eat, drink and sleep, and I could not help doing these things; but there was no life, for there were no wishes the fulfilment of which I could consider reasonable. If I desired anything, I knew in advance that whether I satisfied my desire or not, nothing would come of it. Had a fairy come and offered to fulfil my desires I should not have known what to ask. If in moments of intoxication I felt something which, though not a wish, was a habit left by former wishes, in sober moments I knew this to be a delusion and that there was really nothing to wish for. I could not even wish to know the truth, for I guess of what it consisted. The truth was that life is meaningless.

The fact that a cloud from a minor volcanic eruption in Iceland-a small disturbance in the complex mechanism of life on the Earth-can bring to a standstill the aerial traffic over an entire continent is a reminder of how, with all its power to transform nature, humankind remains just another species on the planet Earth.

Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books history is silent literature dumb science crippled thought and speculation at a standstill.

Success cannot come from standstill men. Methods change and men must change with them.