Aj Fikry Quotes

Sometimes books don't find us until the right time.

You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on

We are not quite novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.

Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.

They had only ever discussed books but what, in this life, is more personal than books?

The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone. My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart. We are not quite novels. The analogy he is looking for is almost there. We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that. In the end, we are collected works.

I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart.

A place ain’t a place without a bookstore,

Someday, you may think of marrying. Pick someone who thinks you're the only person in the room.

No Man Is An Island; Every Book Is A World.

The words you can't find, you borrow. We read to know we're not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone.

The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.

Why is any one book different from any other book? They are different, A.J. decides, because they are. We have to look inside many. We have to believe. We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.

Every word the right one and exactly where it should be. That's basically the highest compliment I can give.

It is the secret fear that we are unlovable that isolates us,” the passage goes, “but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.

Most people's problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.

A question I've thought about a great deal is why it is so much easier to write about the things we dislike/hate/acknowledge to be flawed than the things we love.

The difficulty of living alone is that any mess he makes he is forced to clean up himself. No, the real difficulty of living alone is that no one cares if you are upset.

The words you can't find, you borrow.

Maya, we are what we love. We are that we love.

Remember that a fine education can be found in places other than the usual.

Who are these people who think a book comes with a guarantee that they will like it?

Bookstores attract the right kind of folk. Good people like A.J. and Amelia. And I like talking about books with people who like talking about books. I like paper. I like how it feels, and I like the feel of a book in my back pocket. I like how a new book smells, too.

I've been a police officer for twenty years now and I'll tell you, pretty much every bad thing is life is a result of bad timing, and every good thing is the result of good timing.

When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart, Amy.

Love you,” Maya says. “Yes, she keeps saying that,” A.J. says. “I warned her about giving love that hasn’t yet been earned, but honestly, I think it’s the influence of that insidious Elmo. He loves everyone, you know?

His heart is too full, and no words to release it.

You tell a kid he doesn't like to read, and he'll believe you

Do you like Moby Dick?" he asks. "I hate it," she says. "And I don't say that about many things. Teachers assign it, and parents are happy because their kids are reading something of 'quality.' But it's forcing kids to read books like that that make them think they hate reading.

I don’t want to die,” A.J. says after a bit. “I just find it difficult to be here all the time.

If this were a novel, I'd stop reading right now. I'd throw it across the room.

Every book is a world.

A.J. nods out of politeness, but he doesn’t believe in random acts. He is a reader, and what he believes in is narrative construction. If a gun appears in act one, that gun had better go off by act three.

There's something kind of heroic about being a bookseller.

Showing up is what counts.

We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone.

My life is in these books. Read these and know my heart. We are not quire novels. We are not quite short stories. In the end, we are collected works.

The easiest way to get old is to be technologically behind...

A place is not really a place without a bookstore.

There ain't nobody in the world like book people. It's a business of gentlemen and gentlewomen.

A good marriage is, at least, one part conspiracy.

He wants to laugh out loud or punch a wall. He feels drunk or at least carbonated. Insane. At first, he thinks this is happiness, but then he determines it's love. Fucking love, he thinks. What a bother. It's completely gotten in the way of his plan to drink himself to death, to drive his business to ruin. The most annoying thing about it is that once a person gives a shit about one thing, he finds he has to start giving a shit about everything.

No one travels without purpose. Those who are lost wish to be lost.

People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

the more I believe that this is what the point of it all is. To connect, my dear little nerd. Only connect.

No one will ever love me that much again.

When she told me it was her favorite, it suggested to me strange and wonderful things about her character that I had not guessed, dark places that I might like to visit. People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

He knows she isn't perfect. She knows he definitely isn't perfect. They know there's no such thing as perfect.

He has read enough to know there are no collections where each story is perfect. Some hits. Some misses. If you’re lucky, a standout. And in the end, people only really remember the standouts anyway, and they don't remember those for very long.

Evey day, there is less of me. Today I am thoughts without words. Tomorrow I will be a body without thoughts. And so it goes.

What is the point of bad dates if not to have amusing anecdotes for your friends?

I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be—basically, gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful—nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mash-ups à la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and crossbreeding rarely results in anything satisfying. I do not like children's books, especially ones with orphans, and I prefer not to clutter my shelves with young adult. I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and—I imagine this goes without saying—vampires.

In the end, we are collected works.

Despite the fact that he loves books and owns a bookstore, A.J. does not particularly care for writers. He finds them to be unkempt, narcissistic, silly, and generally unpleasant people. He tries to avoid the ones who've written books he loves for fear that they will ruin their books for him.

There are many challenges to long distance running, but one of the greatest is the question of where to put on's house keys.

He doesn’t believe in “the one.” There are zillions of people in the world; no one is that special.

Still, Amelia had not allowed herself to be certain until dessert, when she’d asked him about the book that had had the greatest influence on his life, and he’d replied Principles of Accounting, Part II.

Maya knows that her mother left her in Island Books. But maybe that’s what happens to all children at a certain age. Some children are left in shoe stores. And some children are left in toy stores. And some children are left in sandwich shops. And your whole life is determined by what store you get left in. She does not want to live in the sandwich shop.

Is a twist less satisfying if you know it’s coming? Is a twist that you can’t predict symptomatic of bad construction? These are things to consider when writing.

For the record, everything new is not worse than everything old.

Everyone thinks they have good taste, but most people do not have good taste. In fact, I'd argue that most people have terrible taste. When left to their own devices—literally their own devices—they read crap and they don't know the difference.

It’s a well-known fact that hate shows up on your face once you’re forty.

She is seventy, and she believes you try new things or you may as well die.

In reading Twain, I often suspect he is having more fun than I am.

Teachers assign it, and parents are happy because their kids are reading something of 'quality.' But it's forcing kids to read books like that that make them think they hate reading.

If something is good and universally acknowledged to be so, this is not reason enough to dislike it.

Infinite Jest is a masterpiece,” Harvey had said. “Infinite Jest is an endurance contest. You manage to get through it and you have no choice but to say you like it. Otherwise, you have to deal with the fact that you just wasted weeks of your life,” A.J. had countered. “Style, no substance, my friend.

It has meaning to me. And the longer I do this (bookselling, yes, of course, but also living if that isn’t too awfully sentimental), the more I believe that this is what the point of it all is. To connect, my dear little nerd. Only connect.

I worry for you. If you love everyone, you’ll end up having hurt feelings most of the time. I suppose, relative to the length of your life, you feel as if you’ve known me a rather long time. Your perspective of time is really very warped, Maya. But I am old and soon, you’ll forget you even knew me.

And then, despite the fact that A. J. does not believe in God, he closes his eyes and thanks whomever, the higher power, with all his porcupine heart.

We aren’t the things we collect, acquire, read. We are, for as long as we are here, only love. The things we loved. The people we loved. And these, I think these really do live on.

Bookstores attract the right kind of folk.

Rosie crosses her arm. “That’s one of those things you say to sound smart, right?” she says. “But, really, you’re trying to make someone else feel stupid.

People like what they like, and that's the great and terrible thing.

We agree to be disappointed sometimes so that we can be exhilarated every now and again.

She was pretty and smart, which makes her death a tragedy. She was poor and black, which means people say they saw it coming.

Fuck you. I like you. I’m used to you. You are the one, you asshole. I can’t meet someone new.

I like all weddings, but isn't it particularly lovely when two grown-ups decide to get married?

In Amelia’s experience, most people’s problems would be solved if they would only give more things a chance.

His heart is too full, and no words to release it. I know what words do, he thinks. They let us feel less.

I always wanted to try the Turkish Delight in Narnia. When I read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a boy, I used to think that Turkish Delight must be incredibly delicious if it made Edmund betray his family,” A.J. says. “I guess I must have told my wife this, because one year Nic gets a box for me for the holidays. And it turned out to be this powdery, gummy candy. I don’t think I’ve ever been so disappointed in my entire life.

It had not been a lonely childhood, though many of her intimates had been somewhat less than real.

A.J. has never changed a diaper in his life, though he is a modestly skilled gift wrapper.

...she doesn't want to become the kind of person who thinks that good news can only come from calls one was already expecting and callers one already knows

The day my father shook my hand, I knew I was a writer.

novels certainly have their charms, but the most elegant creation in the prose universe is a short story. Master the short story and you’ll have mastered the world,

But me-also-thinks my latter-day reaction speaks to the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives. Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.

I do not believe in God. I have no religion. But this to me is as close to a church as I have known in this life. It is a holy place. With bookstores like this, I feel confident in saying that there will be a book business for a very long time.

All I can say is . . . All I can say is we’ll figure it out, I swear. When I read a book, I want you to be reading it at the same time. I want to know what would Amelia think of it. I want you to be mine. I can promise you books and conversation and all my heart, Amy.

The words you can’t find, you borrow. We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone. We are not alone. My life is in these books, he wants to tell her. Read these and know my heart. We are not quite novels. The analogy he is looking for is almost there. We are not quite short stories. At this point, his life is seeming closest to that. In the end, we are collected works. He has read enough to know there are no collections where each story is perfect. Some hits. Some misses. If you’re lucky, a standout. And in the end, people only really remember the standouts anyway, and they don’t remember those for very long. No, not very long.

Maya has chosen to be ring bearer because the job has more responsibility than flower girl. "If you lose a flower, you get another flower," Maya reasons. "If you lose the ring, everyone is sad forever. The ring bearer has much more power." "You sound like Gollum," A.J. says. "Who's Gollum?" Maya wants to know. "Someone very nerdy that your father likes," Amelia says.

That spring, Amelia takes Maya to the drugstore and lets her choose any polish color she likes. "How do you pick?" Maya says. "Sometimes I ask myself how I'm feeling," Amelia says. "Sometimes I ask myself how I'd like to be feeling.

The Beauties” by Anton Chekhov, “The Doll’s House” by Katherine Mansfield, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger, “Brownies” or “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” both by ZZ Packer, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel, “Fat” by Raymond Carver, “Indian Camp” by Ernest Hemingway.

but it is only because we are isolated that we think we are unlovable. Someday, you do not know when, you will be driving down a road. And someday, you do not know when, he, or indeed she, will be there. You will be loved because for the first time in your life, you will truly not be alone. You will have chosen to not be alone.

I chanced upon “The Luck of Roaring Camp” again a couple of years ago and I cried so much you’ll find that my Dover Thrift Edition is waterlogged. Methinks I have grown soft in my middle age. But me-also-thinks my latter-day reaction speaks to the necessity of encountering stories at precisely the right time in our lives. Remember, Maya: the things we respond to at twenty are not necessarily the same things we will respond to at forty and vice versa. This is true in books and also in life.

A.J. has often reflected that, bit by bit, all the best things in the world are being carved away like fat from meat. First, it had been the record stores, and then the video stores, and then newspapers and magazines, and now even the big chain bookstores were disappearing everywhere you looked. From his point of view, the only thing worse than a world with big chain bookstores was a world with NO big chain bookstores.

The walls of the bookstore have wood panels up to just above her head, but beyond that is blue wallpaper. Maya can't reach the wallpaper unless she has a chair. The wallpaper has a bumpy, swirling pattern, and it is pleasing to rub her face against it. She will read the word damask in a book one day and thinks, Yes, of course, that's what it's called. In contrast, the word wainscoting will come as a huge disappointment.

Her mother likes to say that novels have ruined Amelia for real men. This observation insults Amelia because it implies that she only reads books with classically romantic heroes. She does not mind the occasional novel with a romantic hero but her reading taste are far more varied than that. Furthermore, she adores Humbert Humbert as a character while accepting the fact that she wouldn't really want him for a life partner, a boyfriend, or even a casual acquaintance. She feels the same way about Holden Caulfield, and Misters Rochester and Darcy.

How about I tell you what I don't like? I do not like postmodernism, postapocalyptic settings, postmortem narrators, or magic realism. I rarely respond to supposedly clever formal devices, multiple fonts, pictures where they shouldn't be - basically gimmicks of any kind. I find literary fiction about the Holocaust or any other major world tragedy to be distasteful - nonfiction only, please. I do not like genre mashups a la the literary detective novel or the literary fantasy. Literary should be literary, and genre should be genre, and cross breeding rarely results in anything satisfying... I do not like anything over four hundred pages or under one hundred and fifty pages. I am repulsed by ghostwritten novels by reality television stars, celebrity picture books, sports memoirs, movie tie-in editions, novelty items, and - I imagine this goes without saying - vampires.