Quote for the Day: March 31st, 2024

Free for use under the Pixabay Content License. Image Credit: CDD20

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright

Thanks as always for being a faithful reader of The Voracious Bibliophile. If you like what you see, please like, comment, follow, and subscribe to my email list to get notified of new posts as soon as they drop. You can also email me at fred.slusher@thevoraciousbibliophile.com or catch me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest @voraciousbiblog. Keep reading the world, one page (or pixel) at a time.

Quote for the Day: March 30th, 2024

I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Albert Einstein, German-born physicist and recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics

Quote for the Day: March 29th, 2024

Free for use under the Pixabay Content License. Image Credit: Pexels

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan

Quote for the Day: March 28th, 2024

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
H. Jackson Brown Jr., P.S. I Love You

Quote for the Day: March 23rd, 2024

Free for use under the Pixabay Content license. Image credit: JillWellington

Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?
from “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver, in her poetry collection Dream Work

“Wild Geese” was one of the first poems by Mary Oliver that I ever encountered, and I’ve been a disciple of hers ever since. She exists in my mind among the world’s greatest writers, living or dead (she passed away in 2019). I carry the words of “Wild Geese” always in my heart, as an urgent reminder of not just my mortality but my own unique aliveness. There are things we are all given to do, and if one is really lucky (my mother hates the word lucky, so for her I will leave the word blessed here), they’re allowed to share what they’ve been given to others. This is the sole purpose and the grand design of all artistic creation.

There are things we are all given to do, and if one is really lucky (my mother hates the word lucky, so for her I will leave the word blessed here), they’re allowed to share what they’ve been given to others. This is the sole purpose and the grand design of all artistic creation.

I just realized the poem I pulled today’s quote from talks about geese and the picture I’ve provided is of a tit. I think I’ll let it stand.

Quote for the Day: November 25th, 2022

I curated my life to be an expression of my pain. By creating somebody that I felt was stronger than me.
Lady Gaga

I love this quote by Lady Gaga. A lot of people look at her art and life and see only the glamor and artifice they associate with this persona she’s created over her career. What they don’t realize is that many people who lead creative lives, who create art as a means of survival, who depend on it for their living, channel everything they have into their art. So you’re not just getting the joy and the wonder that all of us who are blessed enough to spend time on this planet enjoy, but you’re also getting the trauma and the deeply-held secrets and the pain — so much pain — that we mask and subsume otherwise we’d never leave our rooms again.

I think art forces us to be braver. It forces us to become the best versions of ourselves that we can be. And in the times we can’t be that best version, when we can’t take the high road, when we have to forego that dream of something better, it forces us to look that in the eye — and that in itself is a gift.

Quote for the Day: July 31st, 2022

*The Perks of Being a Wallflower* by Stephen Chbosky

So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.
Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Quote for the Day: July 17th, 2022

There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.
Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

One Year of The Voracious Bibliophile

I can’t believe I’ve been blogging for a whole year. I can’t believe my ADHD brain allowed me to *consistently* blog for a whole year. Shoutout to Adderall! Normally, I’d be of the opinion that self-adulation is a major faux pas (just kidding, I’m a borderline-narcissist) but I’m going to take a minute here to pat myself on the back and give myself a high-five. I feel like I’ve carved out a cool little niche for myself here on the blogosphere, a little space where I can talk about books, yes, but also anything else that tickles my fancy. I designed my own logo and create the majority of my own graphics. I’ve managed to steadily increase organic traffic to my site and keep growing my follower base all while working a full-time day job. I’m kind of a superhero. We’re all kind of superheroes.

Looking back and reflecting on the past year, I am incredibly grateful for everyone who’s given my blog a chance and for all of the other bloggers I have grown to admire for being the shining examples that they are. I hope all of you will continue on this journey with me and that I’ll pick up even more follower-friends over the next year. Thank you so very much.

Bonus

If you want to go back to where it all started, here’s a link to my first-ever blog post from one year ago today: Audiobooks Are Book-Books. Enjoy!

Quote for the Day: March 26th, 2022

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.
Anaïs Nin