Books Quote by Theodore Zeldin

“Happiness is not a popular subject in literary fiction. We struggle, as writers, to make happiness, contentment, and satisfaction interesting. Perfection often lacks texture.”

— Roxanne Gay

“No happiness in the writer, no happiness in the reader.”

— Gabrielle Dubois

“A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favor of happiness, as a very resolute character.”

— Jane Austen

“Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be sad or dark. You can be interested instead of happy. You can be fascinated…

— Augusten Burroughs

“There’s just something about reading a story that makes me happier than anything else in the world.”

— Vanessa Booke

“In time, we found a common interest in poetry. He reads nothing else. Day in, day out. Never happier he is than when reading…

— Jane Austen

“I think that the habit of gloomy poetry is very funny. It’s like a special competition in losing.”

— Miroslav Holub

“The truly happy people are those who have a source of happiness too deep to be seriously disturbed by ordinary troubles.”

— Marion K. Rich

“Happiness is in the quiet, ordinary things. A table, a chair, a book with a paper-knife stuck between the pages. And the petal falling…

— Virginia Woolf

“My thoughts about human happiness, for some peculiar reason, had always been tinged with a certain sadness.”

— Anton Chekhov

“...for literature had always been a solace for him, something that the ugliness of facts could not spoil.”

— E.M. Forster

“It takes a special courage to challenge the rigid confines of our accustomed story. It’s not easy to radically alter our views about where…

— Sharon Salzberg