You are the way and the wayfarers.

The Prophet by  Kahlil Gibran
First published in 1923

Spoiler Alert: Plot Summary
The Prophet is a series of questions (asked and answered) posed for Almustafa, a prophet preparing to leave the city of Orhalese after twelve years and sail away on the sea, back to the land of his birth. He speaks to the people of Orphalese, and shares his thoughts on everything from love to clothes to laws to self-knowledge to time to pain and beyond. It is a poignant treatise full of quotable quotes and deep reflections, and it leaves you somehow both truly fulfilled and yet desperately yearning for more. 
Spoiler Over: Continue Here

Okay, okay, so I know I just said that what I didn't like so much about White Teeth was that it wasn't super plot-driven, but I actually really loved that this book wasn't so much about something as it was about everything and nothing and all the spaces in between. Then again, this book was bite-sized (a hundred pages for my copy, and it was really stretching it with the type-face and the spacing) and White Teeth was more substantial, so perhaps that was part of the difference in readerly experience on my end. Since this one is so short and is full of pithy thoughts, I do recommend giving this one a readerly visit. Not that I don't recommend White Teeth, it's just a different kind of reading experience. Here are some parts I enjoyed. 

On giving

You give but little when you give of your possessions. 

It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. 

Admittedly, I found it a bit odd to read the sort of agnostic, non-denominational nature of the references to God in this book, because some parts of it read as very Biblical, or religious tract-esque, but there were many parts I still enjoyed.

On sorrow

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. I love even the possibility of this being true, even if it doesn't always feel like it is. 

On crime and punishment

And how shall you punish those whose remorse is already greater than their misdeeds?

On laws

You delight in laying down laws,
Yet you delight more in breaking them.
Like children playing by the ocean who build sand-towers with constancy and then destroy them with laughter.  I love the idea of destroying sand-towers with laughter. 

On freedom

You can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfilment. I loved this line because it reminded me of a This American Life episode on humane foie gras. This guy in Spain figures out that geese naturally gorge themselves, but ONLY when they know they are in fact truly free, and so he manages to make some exquisite foie gras just by creating this Edenic environment where they can just roam and live and gorge themselves. This American chef loves the concept and tries to recreate in upstate New York, but his geese won't gorge themselves. The Spaniard comes over to help him try to figure out why, and he starts off by taking him to the incubator, and the Spaniard is like, "How could they think they are free?! They know from their Egg shells that they are captives in this incubator!" It's both wildly trippy and deeply hilarious. It turns out that it's basically impossible to meet American standards for food preparation while ALSO allowing the geese to believe in their true freedom. 

On friendship

Your friend is your needs answered.
And let your best be for your friend. 

This one goes out to all my friends who have been my needs answered over and over and over again. There is not enough gratitude in this world for you. May you always have my best, friends. 

On talking

In much of your talking, thinking is half murdered. Lol. I see what he's getting at here, but all I could think of was the scene in Notting Hill where Hugh Grant dates a 'fruitarian', who only eats food that has fallen from the tree; when he asks her about the vegetables on her plate, she says that they have been "murdered, yes." 

On pleasure

Oftentimes in denying yourself pleasure you do but store the desire in the recesses of your being. 

On beauty

People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror. Be the crown, you are the crown. Lol, there were many places like this where I was like, OKAY, I got it. I'm life. No, I'm the veil. No, I'm eternity. No, I'm the mirror. Wait, what????? 

On strength
You have been told that, even like a chain, you are as weak as your weakest link.
This is but half the truth. You are also as strong as your strongest link.
To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam.
To judge you by your failures is to cast blame upon the seasons for their inconstancy.

This was probably my favorite section. How great is that line? To measure you by your smallest deed is to reckon the power of the ocean by the frailty of its foam. Epic. 

Lines I Liked

• Then the gates of his heart were flung open, and his joy flew far over the sea. 

• And then shall I come to you, a boundless drop to a boundless ocean. 

• A seeker of silences am I.

• If this is my day of harvest, in what fields have I sowed the seed, and in what unremembered seasons? 

• Shall the nightingale offend the stillness of the night, or the firefly the stars? 

• Even while the earth sleeps we travel.

• Is it not your breath that has erected and hardened the structure of your bones?

Since this was a short work, that's all I've got for you, blobbists! I'll leave you with three of my favorite bits. 

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. 

You are not enclosed within your bodies, nor confined to houses or fields.
That which is you dwells above the mountain and roves with the wind.
It is not a thing that crawls into the sun for warmth or digs holes into darkness for safety,
But a thing free, a spirit that envelops the earth and moves in the ether.

Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.
It was but yesterday we met in a dream.
You have sung to me in my aloneness, and I of your longings have built a tower in the sky.
But now our sleep has fled and our dream is over, and it is no longer dawn. 

With that, I'm off to bed, for my sleep has not yet fled. Onwards to Eugene Onegin (can't come up with a fake title, since I'm pretty sure Eugene Onegin is a name, and proper names like Eugene don't really have synonyms) and my dreams. Even while the earth sleeps, I travel.