Mary Ann Shaffer famous quotes

I have gone to [this bookshop] for years, always finding the one book I wanted - and then three more I hadn’t known I wanted.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book #Years #Finding The One

That's what I love about reading: one tiny thing will interest you in a book, and that tiny thing will lead you to another book, and another bit there will lead you onto a third book. It's geometrically progressive - all with no end in sight, and for no other reason than sheer enjoyment.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book #Reading #Sight

I don't want to be married just to be married. I can't think of anything lonelier than spending the rest of my life with someone I can't talk to, or worse, someone I can't be silent with.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Life #Marriage #Thinking

Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Reading #Book #Ruins

My worries travel around in my head on their well worn path
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Worry #Path #Worn

Naturally curly hair is a curse, and don't ever let anyone tell you different.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Hair #Curly Hair #Different

I never met a man half so true as a dog. Treat a dog right, and he'll treat you right. He'll keep you company, be your friend, and never ask you no questions. Cats is different, but I never held that against 'em.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Dog #Cat #Men

I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers-- booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no one in his right mind would want to own one-- the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it-- along with first dibs on the new books.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book #Reading #Mind

Men are more interesting in books than they are in real life.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Real #Book #Men

I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Teacher #Learning #Thinking

Perhaps there is some secret sort of homing instinct in books that brings them to their perfect readers. How delightful if that were true.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book #Perfect #Secret

I am in a constant state of surprise these days. Actually, now that I calculate, I've been betrothed only one full day, but it seems like my whole life has come into being in the last twenty-four hours. Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Thinking #Forever #Gone

When I got up this morning the sea was full of sun pennies - and now it all seems to be covered in lemon scrim. Writers ought to live far inland or next to the city dump, if they are ever to get any work one. Or perhaps they need to be stronger-minded than I am.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Morning #Writing #Sea

Do you arrange your books alphabetically? (I hope not.)
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book

Women like poetry. A soft word in their ears and they melt - a grease spot on the grass.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Grease #Ears #Spots

Now that I think about it, maybe he is a werewolf. I can picture him lunging over the moors in hot pursuit of his prey, and I'm certain that he wouldn't think twice about eating an innocent bystander. I'll watch him closely at the next full moon. He's asked me to go dancing tomorrow--perhaps I should wear a high collar. Oh, that's vampires, isn't it? I think I am a little giddy. (After meeting Mr. Markham V. Reynolds, Jr.)
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Moon #Thinking #Bystanders

Friends, show me a man who hates himself, and I'll show you a man who hates his neighbors more! He'd have to--you'd not grant anyone else something you can't have for yourself--no love, no kindness, no respect!
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Kindness #Hate #Men

All my life I thought that the story was over when the hero and heroine were safely engaged -- after all, what's good enough for Jane Austen ought to be good enough for anyone. But it's a lie. The story is about to begin, and every day will be a new piece of the plot.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Love #Lying #Hero

The first rule of snooping is to come at it sideways.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Firsts #Sideways #Snooping

Think of it! We could have gone on longing for one another and pretending not to notice forever. This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Thinking #Forever #Ruins

I hope, too, that my book will illuminate my belief that love of art - be it poetry, storytelling, painting, sculpture, or music - enables people to transcend any barrier man has yet devised.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Art #Book #Men

What on earth did you say to Isola? She stopped in on her way to pick up Pride and Prejudice and to berate me for never telling her about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Why hadn't she known there were better love stories around? Stories not riddled with ill-adjusted men, anguish, death and graveyards!
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Pride #Men #Stories

Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Grief #Light #Dumb

Those times, I tried to think of something happy, something I'd liked - but not something I loved, for that made it worse.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Thinking #Made

I don't want to be married just to be married. ...
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Want #Married #Being Married

Humour is the best way to make the unbearable bearable.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Way #Unbearable #Humour

Reading keeps you from going ga-ga.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Reading

But you want to know about the influence of books on my life, and as I've said, there was only one. Seneca. . .Maybe that sounds dull, but the letters aren't - they're witty. I think you learn more if you're laughing at the same time.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Witty #Book #Thinking

He had no imagination either-fatal for one engaged in child-rearing
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Children #Imagination #Child Rearing

I don’t know whether to feel flattered or hunted.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Feels #Flattered

‎What a blight that woman is. Do you happen to know why? I lean toward a malignant fairy at her christening.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Fairy #Blight #Christening

Will Thisbee gave me The Beginner's Cook-Book for Girl Guides. It was just the thing; the writer assumes you know nothing about cookery and writes useful hints - "When adding eggs, break the shells first.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Girl #Book #Writing

Do you suppose the St. Swithin's furnace-man was my one true love? Since I never spoke to him, it seems unlikely, but at least it was a passion unscathed by disappointment.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Disappointment #Passion #Spokes

This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Ruins #Dignity #Obsession

I sometimes think I prefer suitors in books rather than right in front of me. How awful, backward, cowardly, and mentally warped that will be if it turns out to be true.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book #Thinking #Suitors

I much prefer whining to counting my blessings.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Blessing #Whining #Counting

We read books, talked books, argued over books and became dearer and dearer to one another.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book

Because there is nothing I would rather do than rummage through bookshops, I went at once to Hastings & Sons Bookshop upon receiving your letter. I have gone to them for years, always finding the one book I wanted - and then three more I hadn't known I wanted.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book #Son #Years

It was amazing to me then, and still is, that so many people who wander into bookshops don't really know what they're after--they only want to look around and hope to see a book that will strike their fancy. And then, being bright enough not to trust the publisher's blurb, they will ask the book clerk the three questions: (1) What is it about? (2) Have you read it? (3) Was it any good?
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Book #People #Clerks

Your questions regarding that gentleman are very delicate, very subtle, very much like being smacked in the head with a mallet...it's a tuba among the flutes.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Gentleman #Tubas #Flutes

Miss X has always been a ditherer -- she was a ten month baby and has not improved in any material way since then.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Baby #Missing #Way

If there is Predestination, then God is the devil. by Remy, Ravensbruck concentration camp survivor
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Devil #Survivor #Concentration

Treat a dog right and he'll treat you right. ... Cats is different, but I never held it against them.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Dog #Cat #Different

Have you ever noticed that when your mind is awakened or drawn to someone new, that person's name suddenly pops up everywhere you go? My friend Sophie calls it coincidence, and Mr. Simpless, my parson friend, calls it Grace. He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and "fruitfulness" is drawn in.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Thinking #Names #Grace

After all, what's good enough for Austen ought to be good enough for anyone.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Good Enough #Enough #Be Good

Then i imagined a lifetime of having to cry to get him to be kind, and I went back to no again.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Be Kind #Kind #Cry

one year as his wife, and id have become one of those abject, quaking women who look at their husbands when someone asks them a question. I've always despised that type, but I see how it happens now
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Husband #Years #Wife

His writings have made me his friend.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Writing #Made

I believe I am becoming pathetic. I'll go further, I believe that I am in love with a flower-growing, wood-carving quarryman/carpenter/pig farmer. In fact, I know I am. Perhaps tomorrow I will become entirely miserable at the thought that he doesn't love me back - may, even, care for Remy- but at this precise moment I am succumbing to euphoria. My head and stomach feel quite odd.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Believe #Flower #Pigs

People don't know how chickens can turn on you, but they can -- just like mad dogs.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Dog #Mad #People

Isola doesn't approve of small talk and believes in breaking the ice by stomping on it.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Believe #Ice #Stomping

Moses: God or crowd control?!?
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Crowds #Moses

In a good mood I call my hair Chestnut with Gold Glints. In a bad mood, I call it mousy brown
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Hair #Gold #Bad Mood

I am to cover the philosophical side of the debate and so far my only thought is that reading keeps you from going gaga.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Philosophical #Reading #Sides

Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Goes On #Nonsense #Life Goes On

Isn't that something-to know your own soul by hearsay, instead of its own tidings? Why should I let a preacher tell me if I had one or not? If I could believe I hada soul, all by myself, then I could listen to its tidings all by myself.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Believe #Soul #Should

She is one of those ladies who is more beautiful at sixty than she could possibly have been at twenty. (how I hope someone says that about me someday)!
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#Beautiful #Twenties #Someday

I, too, have felt that the war goes on and on. When my son, Ian, died at El Alamein-- side by side with... visitors offering their condolences, thinking to comfort me, said, "Life goes on." What nonsense, I thought, of course it doesn't. It's death that goes on; Ian is dead now and will be dead tomorrow and nexe year and forever. There's no end to that. But perhaps there will be an end to the sorrow of it.
-- Mary Ann Shaffer

#War #Condolences #Son