Reading a poem in translation is like kissing a woman through a veil.
Anne MichaelsRead
Hold a book in your hand and you're a pilgrim at the gates of a new city.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Reading opens up new worlds and experiences, much like exploring a new city.
This quote by Anne Michaels emphasizes the transformative power of reading. Just as a pilgrim arrives at the gates of a new city filled with possibilities and discoveries, holding a book signifies the beginning of an adventure into unfamiliar knowledge, ideas, and perspectives. Each book can lead us to unexplored territories of thought and imagination, enriching our lives in profound ways.
Themes
BooksReadingAdventureKnowledgeExploration
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared at a book club meeting to inspire discussion about the power of literature.
More from Anne Michaels
All quotes →When my parents were liberated, four years before I was born, they found that the ordinary world outside the camp had been eradicated. There was no more simple meal, no thing was less than extraordinary: a fork, a mattress, a clean shirt, a book. Not to mention such things that can make one weep: an orange, meat and vegetables, hot water. There was no ordinariness to return to, no refuge from the blinding potency of things, an apple screaming its sweet juice.
Anne MichaelsRead
If love wants you; if you've been melted down to stars, you will love with lungs and gills; with feathers and scales; with warm blood and cold.
Anne MichaelsRead
Long after you’ve forgotten someone’s voice, you can still remember the sound of their happiness or their sadness. You can feel it in your body.
Anne MichaelsRead
Love makes you see a place differently, just as you hold differently an object that belongs to someone you love. If you know one landscape well, you will look at all other landscapes differently. And if you learn to love one place, sometimes you can also learn to love another.
Anne MichaelsRead
There's a moment when love makes you believe in death for the first time. You recognize the one whose loss, even contemplated, you'll carry forever, like a sleeping child. All grief, anyone's grief...is the weight of a sleeping child.
Anne MichaelsRead
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