The Little Paris Bookshop

I picked up this book last minute to put into my own stocking and decided to play hooky for a day last week and read it. It turned out to be just what the doctor ordered for my soul. It was post Christmas and I was feeling a bit down and there was so much goodness in this book that I even underlined some of my favorite lines or sections. I loved the story and plan to read it over and over again. Here are some of the highlights. Enjoy!

·Never listen to fear! Fear makes you stupid.

· It is ridiculous to interpret abuse as love. Far too many women are the accomplices of cruel, indifferent men. These women always retain some hope that love is hiding behind the cruelty so that the anguish doesn’t drive them mad. Truth is, though, there’s no love there. And the children, they think it must somehow be their fault that their father cannot love them. It has nothing to do with them. We cannot compel anyone to love us.

· Women [authors] tell you more about the world. Men only tell you about themselves.

· Reading makes people impudent and tomorrow’s world is going to need some people who aren’t shy to speak their minds.

· Part of him was afraid of losing control; part of him longed for exactly that.

· Defiance: I see a little girl in pretend armor, fighting off all the things she doesn’t want to be. Lady Defiance, a lone knight against the dark forces of reason.

· Habit: she smothers one desire after another. She stops us from living as we would like, because habit prevents us from asking ourselves whether we continue to enjoy doing what we do.

· Warmth

· Because he was alone, totally alone, with the burden of his love. Until today.

· She took her own place. No worse, no better: simply different.

· The realization that he was lovable after all.

· When it comes down to it, you only regret the things you didn’t do.

·A little bomb exploded in Max’s imagination, showering his secret inner garden with seeds.

· Family anchor: dinner table

· Loving requires so much courage and so little expectation.

· Third love: there’s the love that comes from your chest or your solar plexus, or somewhere in between. That’s the type I want. It’s got to have the magic that sets my life-blood alight.

· You really can scream with your heart; but it’s incredibly painful.

· She drank from life as if it were champagne.

· Do you know there’s a halfway world between each ending and each new beginning? It’s called the hurting time.

· He had discovered that this was the only way he could flush the sorrow out of his system and let if flow away, bit by bit. He wouldn’t go under; he wouldn’t drown in his emotions.

· We have to live the important things, not read them.

· And it gives you courage. It gives you the courage to trust.

· Inner turmoil

· Inner peace