It’s happened to me a few times that a book is otherwise fairly forgettable presents a fantastic insight, or crystallizes an idea I’d felt but never verbalized. It’s one the major reasons I rarely stop reading books, probably to my detriment. I’ll give my example, but I’m curious what other people have discovered in books they probably wouldn’t recommend.
In Richard Farr’s “The Fire Seekers,” an adventure story with a historical bent that focused on all the wrong things in my opinion, had this line that literally led me to have a better relationship with my father: “[my father] wants to feel close to me, wants to understand me, and wants the
easy road to that result, which is me being more like him than I am.”
What about you?
I read Don DeLillo’s “Libra” about 20 or 25 years ago and didn’t like it, mostly because I thought it was really badly written. However there were a couple of statements in it that resonated with me. I can only give approximate quotations though because it’s such a long time ago and I got rid of the book in the meantime.
Strength needs no excuses. (This was about being honest instead of lying and it often helped me with staying honest even when that seemed frightening).
She was like a little puppy - always coming back to her owner, no matter how badly he abused her. Just for a little bit of love. (About Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife if I remember correctly. That one resonated a lot with me in my life’s circumstances at the time.)