We do not hover above the great rich tangle of the world, gazing down from on high. We are already in the world and involved in it – we are ‘thrown’ here. And ‘thrownness’ must be our starting point.


“When we read a story, we inhabit it. The covers of the book are like a roof and four walls. What is to happen next will take place within the four walls of the story. And this is possible because the story's voice makes everything its own.”
― Keeping a Rendezvous: Essays
― Keeping a Rendezvous: Essays

“I should say: the house shelters day-dreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace.”
― The Poetics of Space
― The Poetics of Space

“It is in our idleness, in our dreams, that the submerged truth sometimes makes its way to the surface.”
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―

“We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.
I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.”
― The English Patient
I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.”
― The English Patient

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
― A Moveable Feast
― A Moveable Feast
Bex’s 2024 Year in Books
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