Quotes from Aidan Chambers

Unless you find yourself in a book, you have a hard time finding anybody else.

No, but still, the fact is, at least this is how it seems to me, everybody has to learn about it [love] from scratch for themselves. And we all make the same mistakes time and again while we're learning.

Few pleasures, for the true reader, rival the pleasure of browsing unhurriedly among books: old books, new books, library books, other people's books, one's own books - it does not matter whose or where. Simply to be among books, glancing at one here, reading a page from one over there, enjoying them all as objects to be touched, looked at, even smelt, is a deep satisfaction.

Readers are made not born.

Real love is observing another person and being observed by another person with complete attention...and all art is love, because all art is about looking closely

Every secret told, every declaration made, is a boundary crossed, a step taken into unknown country that can never be unstepped, never reversed, never erased.

If I have a creed, this is it: My god is language, written and read. And there is no other god but this.

Ser artista es más complicado de lo que parece —Dijo Úrsula. -Ser cualquiera es más complicado de lo que parece —Dijo Paul.

I think the truth is…you fell for a face and a body and then put the person inside you wanted to find there.

And in short measures life may perfect be

You have to know your own truth and stick to it. And never despair. Never give up. There's always hope.

Love, being in love, isn't a constant thing. It doesn't always flow at the same strength. It's not always like a river in flood. It's more like the sea. It has tides, it ebbs and flows. The thing is, when love is real, whether it's ebbing or flowing, it's always there, it never goes away. And that's the only proof you can have that it is real, and not just a crush or an infatuation or a passing fancy

Sometimes the course of our lives depends on what we do or don't do in a few seconds, a heartbeat, when we either seize the opportunity, or just miss it. Miss the moment and you never get a chance again.

There are times when you don't know yourself. There are times when you don't want to know yourself. There are times when you want to be what you have never allowed yourself to be before.

All the time I think I can never love you more than I already do. And then you do something or say something, and I love you more than ever. Like just now. Like now. How is it possible? Can you love someone more and more and at the same time, all the time, love them as much as it's possible to love someone?

However much you love somebody, you should always keep a part of yourself to yourself. Never give it all. You can never be yourself otherwise.

Is it better to go with the flow or let the flow go?

Doing anything when you're bored is very very boring. Anyway, doing nothing is the point of being bored. The pleasure of being bored is mooning about and doing nothing.

I cannot live without reading.

She was--I keep using the past tense; I ought to say she is--one of those people who, at first sight, look plain, are quiet, unassertive, unmemorable even. But who, when they start to talk and you get to know them, become more and more attractive and impressive, and you see that in fact they are beautiful. Not conventionally beautiful, not celebrity beautiful, but beautiful all through.

I don't know, I can't quite get it. Don't try. It's just words. Just words? Just words! We love them so much, you and me. But in the end, they fail us. Because there are truths beyond words.

I don't actually think "true love" is such a good term because love can only be true. If it isn't true it can't be love.

How do I think of you? As someone I want to be with. As someone as young as me, but older, if that makes sense. As someone I like to look at, not just because you're good to look at, but because just looking at you makes me smile and feel happier. As someone who knows her mind and who I envy for that. As someone who is strong in herself without seeming to need anyone else to help her. As someone who makes me thinks and unsettles me in a way that makes me feel more alive.

And trust dies from ifs and buts