The Echo of Old Books Quotes

“We read not to escape life but to learn how to live it more deeply and richly, to experience the world through the eyes of the other.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“To lose oneself in the pages of a book is often to find oneself. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Books are feelings,” he replied simply. “They exist to make us feel. To connect us to what’s inside, sometimes to things we don’t even know are there.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“In the happiest times of my life, I have reached for my books. In the saddest times of my life, my books have reached back.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Books may be likened to the people who come into our lives. Some will become precious to us; others will be set aside. The key is to discern which is which.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“There is nothing quite so alive as a book that has been well loved. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Without a reader, a book was a blank slate, an object with no breath or pulse of its own. But once a book became part of someone’s world, it came to life, with a past and a present—and, if properly cared for, a future.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“The number of lives we are capable of living is limited only by the number of books we choose to read. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“There’s nothing more personal than a book, especially one that’s become an important part of someone’s life.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“people’s lives were defined not by the scars they acquired but by what lay on the other side of those scars, by what’s done with the life they have left.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Like people, it is the books with the most scars that have lived the fullest lies. Faded, creased, dusty, broken. These have the best stories to tell, the wisest counsel to offer.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“The number of lives we are capable of living is limited only by the number of books we choose to read.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Books are rib and spine, blood and ink, the stuff of dreams dreamed and lives lived. One page, one day, one journey at a time. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Every woman is a puzzle,” I say finally. “Some harder to solve than others. But then, I’ve found it’s the difficult ones who are most worth the effort.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“She understood the need to retreat behind a book, to create a physical barrier between you and the world. She’d been doing it for years, seeking refuge in other people’s stories.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“But if something tragic happened in a book, you could just close it and choose a new one, unlike real life, where events often played out without the protagonist’s consent.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Like humans, books experienced their share of heartache—and like humans, they remembered.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Books were safe. They had plots that followed predictable patterns, beginnings, middles, and endings. Usually happy, though not always. But if something tragic happened in a book, you could just close it and choose a new one, unlike real life, where events often played out without the protagonist’s consent.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Books are feelings,” he replied simply. “They exist to make us feel. To connect us to what’s inside, sometimes to things we don’t even know are there. It only makes sense that some of what we feel when we’re reading would . . . rub off.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“We never think of our parents that way, as people with dreams and passions. They’re just parents.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“You have been the capital error of my life, the one regret for which there can be no absolution, no peace. For you or for me.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“To read a book is to take a journey, to travel into a vast unknown, to hear the voices of angels both living and dead. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“She had learned only recently the power of forgiveness, and had come to understand that the choice to forgive was as much about self-healing as about absolving another of their guilt.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Women aren’t usually consulted on wars. We send our husbands and brothers and sweethearts to do the dying, hold the pieces together while they’re gone, then pick up what’s left when they come home—if they come home—but we’re seldom asked what we think.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Don’t leave it too long,” Marian admonished with a hint of gravity. “Time has a way of getting away from you. Things happen, and before you know it, you’ve missed your chance.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers. —Charles W. Eliot”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“We read not to escape life but to learn how to live it more deeply and richly, to experience the world through the eyes of the other. —Ashlyn Greer, The Care & Feeding of Old Books”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“But I have learned this. In every wound, there is a gift. Even the self-inflicted ones.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“I drop into my chair, breathe in, let it out. Even now, with so many years gone, the memories are tricky. Like the ache of a phantom limb, the source of the pain may be gone, but the reminder of what’s been lost, so sudden and so keen, takes me unaware. I sit with that pain a moment, waiting for it to fade. Afternoon”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books

“How our government had sold its soul in the name of profit. How our humanity was slipping away. How prevalent bigotry still is in modern America and the need to guard against it.”
― Barbara Davis, The Echo of Old Books