I’ve been reading some thought-provoking and entertaining non fiction lately. Here are some of my favourite quotations about reading, creativity, and faith.

Alan Jacobs on serendipity:

“I used to try to determine in advance what books I would read over the summer, but eventually realized that to put any book on such a list nearly guaranteed that I would not read it. No matter how anxiously I had been anticipating it, as soon as it took its place among the other assigned texts it became as broccoli unto me — and any book not on the list, not matter how unattractive it might appear in other contexts, immediately became as desirable as a hot fudge sundae. And over the years I have decided that the instinctive resistance to the predetermined is a gift, not a disability.”
–  The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction

Elizabeth Gilbert on authenticity in creative endeavors:

“Attempts at originality can often feel forced and precious, but authenticity has quiet resonance that never fails to stir me.”
– Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Elizabeth Gilbert on not preaching at people:

“Your own reasons to create are reasons enough. Merely by pursuing what you love, you may inadvertently end up helping us plenty…. Do whatever brings you to life, then. Follow your fascinations, obsessions, and compulsions. Trust them. Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart. The rest will take care of itself.”
– Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Elizabeth Gilbert on getting out of a rut:

“Go walk the dog, go pick up every bit of trash on the street outside your home, go walk the dog again, go bake a peach cobbler, go paint some pebbles with brightly colored nail polish and put them in a pile. You might think it’s procrastination, but — with the right intention — it isn’t; it’s motion. And any motion whatsoever beats inertia, because inspiration will always be drawn to motion.”
– Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

Madeleine L’Engle on faith:

“I don’t need faith to know that if a poem has fourteen lines, a specific rhyme scheme, and is in iambic pentameter, it is a sonnet; it may not be a good sonnet, but it will be a sonnet. I don’t need faith to know that if I take flour and butter and milk and seasonings and heat them in a double boiler, the mixture will thicken and become white sauce. Faith is for that which lies on the other side of reason. Faith is what makes life bearable, with all its tragedies and ambiguities and sudden, startling joys. Surely it wasn’t reasonable for the Lord of the Universe to come and walk this earth with us and love us enough to die for us and then show us everlasting life? We will all grow old, and sooner or later we will die, like the old trees in the orchard. But we have been promised that this is not the end. We have been promised life.”
– Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art

Ken Jennings quoting Simone Weil:

“To be rooted,” wrote Simone Weil, “is perhaps the most important and the least recognized need of the human soul.”
– Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks

What are you reading these days?