Royal Society of Literature
@RSLiterature
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The RSL celebrates and nurtures reading and writing of all kinds. We're a charity that believes literature is for everyone. ✨ 200 years young. 🌟
Joined January 2011
'"Cats don't have names,' it said. 'No?' said Coraline. 'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.”' .– Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself). #InternationalCatDay
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'But, of course, it isn't really Good-bye, because the Forest will always be there. and anybody who is Friendly with Bears can find it.' ― A.A. Milne. #BrexitEve
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'So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say.'. ― Virginia Woolf #BOTD in 1882
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“It's still National Library Week. You should be especially nice to a librarian today, or tomorrow. Sometime this week, anyway. Probably the librarians would like tea. Or chocolates. Or a reliable source of funding.” . — Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself). #LibrariesWeek
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Our thoughts are with our Fellow Salman Rushdie and all his friends and family at this time.
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'All cats can see futures, and see echoes of the past. We can watch the passage of creatures from the infinity of now, from all the worlds like ours, only fractionally different.' . – from 'The Sandman', @neilhimself . #InternationalCatDay
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'There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.'. ― Beatrix Potter, #BOTD in 1866.
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'You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.'.― James Baldwin #BOTD in 1924
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'The book to read is not the one that thinks for you but the one which makes you think.'.― Harper Lee #BOTD in 1926
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'My dreams were all my own; I accounted for them to nobody; they were my refuge when annoyed - my dearest pleasure when free.'. ― Mary Shelley, #BOTD in 1797.
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'Said Hamlet to Ophelia,.I'll draw a sketch of thee. What kind of pencil shall I use?.2B or not 2B?'.― Spike Milligan #BOTD in 1918
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'All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'. — J.R.R. Tolkien, #BOTD in 1892
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"A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. It’s a community space. It’s a place of safety, a haven from the world." — Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself). #LibrariesWeek
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'Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.'.― Dylan Thomas #BOTD in 1914
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'Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.' ― Primo Levi. #HolocaustRemembranceDay
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'A library is a place that is a repository of information and gives every citizen equal access to it. That includes health information. And mental health information. It's a community space. It's a place of safety, a haven from the world.'. — @neilhimself, #NationalLibrariesWeek
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@stephenfry Wonderful to have you 🙂 For all those interested in the pens, we have (from front) Byron's, George Eliot's & T. S. Eliot's. We also have a quill that belonged to Dickens but sadly had to retire it when it started splattering ink everywhere! Follow us for more literary loveliness
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'I can never read all the books I want; I can never live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of mental and physical experience possible in my life.'.― Sylvia Plath #BOTD in 1932
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'Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.'.― Virginia Woolf #BOTD in 1882
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🎉 We'd like to wish our Royal Patron HRH The Duchess of Cornwall the happiest of birthdays @ClarenceHouse 🎉. It was an honour to welcome HRH to our #40Under40 Fellowship induction back in 2018 and we look forward to celebrating again together soon #FRSL
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'I'm tired of the news. I'm tired of anger. I'm tired of the meanness. I'm tired of selfishness. I'm tired of lying governments. I'm tired of people not caring whether they're being lied to anymore. I'm tired of being made to feel this fearful.'. ― Ali Smith. #LGBTHM19
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'. we should be careful.Of each other, we should be kind .While there is still time.' .― Philip Larkin #BOTD in 1922
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Our Royal Patron, Her Majesty The Queen Consort, presents Shehan Karunatilaka with the @TheBookerPrizes trophy for 'The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida' 🥳 🏆👏 congratulations to all on the shortlist
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'My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.'. ― Edith Sitwell, #BOTD in 1887.
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'I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.'. — Zora Neale Hurston, #BOTD in 1891
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'Books are everywhere; and always the same sense of adventure fills us. Second-hand books are wild books. '.– Virginia Woolf . #BookLoversDay
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'Sometimes Matilda longed for a friend, someone like the kind, courageous people in her books.'.-- Roald Dahl. Happy #WorldBookDay!
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'I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.'. ― Harper Lee, #BOTD in 1926. What advice do you have for emerging writers? Take our survey & tell us >> Deadline 30 April.
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'I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish' - Simone de Beauvoir #BOTD in 1908
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‘We can destroy what we have written, but we cannot unwrite it’. Anthony Burgess #bornonthisday one hundred years ago.
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'I believe that reading and writing are the most nourishing forms of meditation anyone has so far found. By reading the writings of the most interesting minds in history, we meditate with our own minds and theirs as well. This to me is a miracle.'. — Kurt Vonnegut, #BOTD in 1922
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'I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.'. ― Charlotte Brontë . #InternationalWomensDay
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🎟️ Only a handful of in-person tickets left for @GillianA & Andrew O'Hagan next week at the @britishlibrary 🎟️ . ➡️ Join as an RSL Member TODAY to snap one up for FREE: 📅 Event info:
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'Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge. it must be rejected, altered and exposed.'. —Toni Morrison #BOTD in 1931
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“Poirot," I said. "I have been thinking."."An admirable exercise my friend. Continue it.”.― Agatha Christie #BOTD in 1890
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'If there is a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, you must be the one to write it.'.― Toni Morrison. #BookLoversDay
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'Reading is important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you’re given. It is how humans merge. How minds connect. Dreams. Empathy. Understanding. Escape. Reading is love in action.'.― Matt Haig @matthaig1 . #WorldMentalHealthDay
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'I'm always irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It is a plunge into reality and it's very shocking to the system.'. ― Flannery O'Connor, #BOTD in 1925.
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'Making the work happen, rather than waiting for other people to offer you opportunities – that’s very much the job of the writer. It’s about creating those characters and stories that need to be told'. ― @BernardineEvari, #BlackHistoryMonth
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'And since you know you cannot see yourself,.so well as by reflection, I, your glass,.will modestly discover to yourself,.that of yourself which you yet know not of.'. ― William Shakespeare, #BOTD in 1564.
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Congratulations to RSL Fellow Linton Kwesi Johnson, who has won the @englishpen PEN Pinter Prize. In the words of Paul Gilroy @bungatuffie, 'Without intending to do so, he became the voice of a whole generation'.
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'Look here Vita throw over your man, and we’ll go to Hampton Court and dine on the river together and walk in the garden in the moonlight and come home late and have a bottle of wine and get tipsy, and I’ll tell you all the things I have in my head. '. —Virginia Woolf. #LGTBHM19
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'The sea rises, the light fails,.lovers cling to each other,.and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other,.the moment we break faith with one another,.the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.'. James Baldwin.from 'For Nothing is Fixed'
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'When you’re writing, you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know. The whole language of writing for me is finding out what you don’t want to know, what you don’t want to find out. But something forces you to anyway.' .― James Baldwin, #BOTD in 1924.
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‘By March, the worst of the winter would be over. The snow would thaw, the rivers begin to run and the world would wake into itself again.’ – Neil Gaiman
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'You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.'. ― Octavia E. Butler, #BOTD in 1947.
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"Make up a story. tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.". So sad to learn of the death of Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison.
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'To see a World in a Grain of Sand .And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, .Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand .And Eternity in an hour.'.― William Blake #BOTD in 1757
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'Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead. Pay attention. It’s all about paying attention. Attention is vitality. It connects you with others. It makes you eager. Stay eager.' .― Susan Sontag #BornOnThisDay in 1933
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'All that is gold does not glitter,.Not all those who wander are lost;.The old that is strong does not wither,.Deep roots are not reached by the frost.'.― J.R.R. Tolkien #BOTD in 1892
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'The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.'. ― Zadie Smith, #BOTD. #BlackHistoryMonth
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'Bring me all of your dreams,.You dreamer,.Bring me all your.Heart melodies.That I may wrap them.In a blue cloud-cloth.Away from the too-rough fingers.Of the world.'. ― Langston Hughes #BOTD in 1902
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'It’s the fire in my eyes, .And the flash of my teeth, .The swing in my waist, .And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman.Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman,.That’s me.'.― Maya Angelou. #InternationalWomensDay
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Stuck for🎄🎁 ideas?. Buy an RSL Gift Membership or a Digital Events Pass & treat the literature lover in your life to exclusive access to events like #GillianAnderson & #AndrewOHagan FOR FREE! . Full details➡️ 🎉🎟️✨🎁🎄
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'The mind is its own place, and in itself .Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.'. — John Milton, #BOTD in 1608
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We’re proud to announce the 2020 #RSLOndaatje Prize Longlist. The £10,000 Prize is awarded annually to a book – fiction, non-fiction or poetry – which best evokes the spirit of a place. In these times of isolation, their works are more important than ever:.
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'Hope is the thing with feathers.That perches in the soul.And sings the tune without the words.And never stops at all.'. — Emily Dickinson, #BOTD in 1830.
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'Those who are bold enough to advance before the age they live in, and to throw off, by the force of their own minds, the prejudices which the maturing reason of the world will in time disavow, must learn to brave censure.'. ― Mary Wollstonecraft, #BOTD in 1759.
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'No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.' - Charles Dickens #BOTD in 1812
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‘I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights.’ – Maya Angelou
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'Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it.'.― @neilhimself #shortstorywritingtips. Enter the 2019 V.S. Pritchett Prize now >>.Deadline: Friday 28 June 2019
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We couldn’t be happier to announce that the next President of the RSL is Bernardine Evaristo @BernardineEvari!. 📰 Bernardine will take up her new post in January 2022 📅 . 📻Catch her on @BBCr4today from 8.40am #RSL200
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'“. Do you think we’ll ever really belong anywhere?”.“I suppose not,” said Papa. “Not the way people belong who have lived in one place all their lives. But we’ll belong a little in lots of places, and I think that may be just as good.”' ― Judith Kerr. #HolocaustRemembranceDay
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'If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.'.― Daphne du Maurier #BOTD in 1907
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Delighted to be announcing the winner of the £10,000 #RSLChristopherBland Prize 2021 awarded to a debut novelist or non-fiction writer first published aged 50 or over. Watch Mary Beard (@wmarybeard), Chair of this year’s judges, reveal who has won! .
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'I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.'. — Jane Austen, #BOTD in 1775.
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'When I was a child, when I was an adolescent, books saved me from despair. ' .― Simone de Beauvoir #BOTD in 1908
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“He licked his lips. ‘Well, if you want my opinion-‘.‘I don’t, ‘ She said. ‘I have my own.”.― Toni Morrison #BOTD in 1931
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'You write not for children but for yourself. And if by good fortune children enjoy what you enjoy, why then you are a writer of children's books.' - Arthur Ransome #BOTD in 1884
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Delighted to announce the longlist for the '22 #RSLOndaatje Prize, awarded to a book (fiction/non-fiction/poetry) which best evokes the spirit of a place 📚 . Congrats to all 2⃣1⃣ longlisted authors 🎉. 📰 📅 Shortlist 20 April, Winner 4 May. #RSLOndaatje
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We are delighted to announce the longlist for the 2019 #RSLOndaatje Prize, awarded annually to a book – fiction, non-fiction or poetry – which best evokes the spirit of a place. This is the first time we have announced a longlist - in celebration of the 15th year of the Prize.
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'You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.'.― Harper Lee, To Kill A Mockingbird. Literature cultivates empathy. Tweet us your #ReadForEmpathy book recommendations. #EmpathyDay
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'The very reason I write is so that I might not sleepwalk through my entire life.'. - Zadie Smith #BlackHistoryMonth
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'The night is darkening round me, .The wild winds coldly blow; .But a tyrant spell has bound me, .And I cannot, cannot go. The giant trees are bending .Their bare boughs weighed with snow; .The storm is fast descending, .And yet I cannot go.'. ― Emily Brontë, #BOTD in 1818.
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Virginia Woolf said that to be a writer, a woman needed money & a room of her own. We want to know what UK writers need today in order to flourish professionally. Writers! Complete our survey. Tell us what you need to thrive. #UKWritersSurvey #ARoomOfMyOwn
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Congratulations to @Anthony1983 - winner of the 2023 RSL Ondaatje Prize for 'Heritage Aesthetics' @GrantaBooks
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'Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.'.― Jack Kerouac #BOTD in 1922
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'I tire so of hearing people say,.Let things take their course. Tomorrow is another day. I do not need my freedom when I'm dead. I cannot live on tomorrow's bread.'.― Langston Hughes #BOTD in 1902
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The BIGGEST of thank yous to the wonderful @GillianA & Andrew O’Hagan for a fantastic #LiteratureMatters #RSL200 discussion at the @britishlibrary 🤩. Huge thanks to all of you who joined us in person & tuned in online too ❤️
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We are absolutely thrilled to celebrate so many great names in contemporary literature with this year’s new Fellows and Honorary Fellows. Please join us in congratulating all 62 of our new Fellows, who we are formally inducting and celebrating at our Summer Party today👏
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'I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library.' . ― Jorge Luis Borges #BOTD in 1899
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It is a proven fact that reading can help reduce stress. This #NationalStressAwarenessDay, take some time for yourself and cosy up with a good read. ☕️📖
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“. we won’t belong. Do you think we’ll ever really belong anywhere?”.“I suppose not,” said Papa. “Not the way people belong who have lived in one place all their lives. But we’ll belong a little in lots of places, and I think that may be just as good.” .― Judith Kerr #BOTD 1923
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🎂 We'd like to wish Her Majesty The Queen a wonderful 96th birthday 🎂. Here's HM Queen Elizabeth presenting RSL Vice-President Grace Nichols with the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry earlier this year 🏅 #ThrowbackThursday. #PlatinumJubilee .
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On #DallowayDay we celebrate Virginia Woolf's work. 90 years after A Room of One's Own we've asked writers today what they need to work. As well as events throughout the day, we're publishing new writing from RSL Fellows and launching our #ARoomofMyOwn #UKWritersSurvey report.1/4
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'I believe that the main thing in beginning a novel is to feel, not that you can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can't cross; that its to be pulled through only in a breathless anguish.'. ― Vita Sackville-West, #BOTD in 1892.
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“Don't you ever mind," she asked suddenly, "not being rich enough to buy all the books you want?” ― Edith Wharton #BOTD in 1862
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'You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep Spring from coming.'.― Pablo Neruda #BOTD in 1904
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'For last year's words belong to last year's language.And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.'. ― T.S. Eliot, #BOTD in 1888.
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'A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort.'. ― E.B. White, author of Stuart Little and Charlotte's Web, #BOTD in 1899.
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DSI Stella Gibson, Miss Havisham, Dana Scully, Dr Jean Milburn. 🎭@GillianA has devoted her career to inventing, inhabiting & adapting some of the most memorable characters ever written. 📅TOMORROW NIGHT Gillian Anderson & Andrew O'Hagan (LAST FEW 🎟️):
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'We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.'.― Cecil Day Lewis #BOTD in 1904
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Wilfred Owen, considered one of the foremost poets of his generation, died 100 years ago today, 4 November 1918. Thanks to funding from @ace_national we remember Owen at this afternoon's #PeacePoetry event, through new poetry commissions and our #PoemsforPeace schools project.
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