“Such are the thoughts that make me panic when I hear the books above me plotting their revenge, and I am so terrified by the prospect of having them flatten me and then crash through each floor all the way to the basement, like an elevator, that I prefer sleeping in my chair by the window. The way I look at it, my life fits together beautifully: at work I have books—and bottles and inkwells and staplers—raining down on me through the opening in the cellar ceiling, and at home I have books above me constantly threatening to fall and kill or at least maim me. The swords of Damocles that I’ve hung from my bathroom and bedroom ceilings force me to make as many trips for beer at home as at work: it’s my only defense against a beautiful misery.”
\_\_\_\_\_Too Loud a Solitude – Bohumil Hrabal
by benqadeer