Tag: book quotes

March 20, 2019

10 Literary Quotes to Celebrate the First Day of Spring!

Now that Spring has officially sprung, it’s time to get excited about the new season. Spring symbolizes new beginnings, and the beginning of the warm weather and growth. So here are some quotes to get you excited and inspired on this first day of Spring!

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“If people did not love one another, I really don’t see what use there would be in having any Spring.”

― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“‘Is the Spring coming?’ he said. ‘What’s it like?’…’It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine, and things pushing up and working under the Earth.'”

― Francis Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

“It’s Spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

― Mark Twain

“Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps.”

― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again.”

― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”

― Ernest Hemingway

“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”

― Charles Dickens

“To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.”

― George Santayana

“I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring. Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature’s rebirth?”

― Edward Giobbi

“But the true nature of the human heart is as whimsical as spring weather. All signals may aim toward a fall of rain when suddenly the skies will clear.”

― Maya Angelou, The Collected Autobiographies of Maya Angelou

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February 7, 2019

10 Charles Dickens Quotes to Brighten Your Bleakest Days

The guy’s work may have been a buzzkill to read while trying to enjoy high school, but he did indeed have some facts of life to spit. (It’s pretty cool that A Tale of Two Cities was the narrative foundation for The Dark Knight Rises). Yet even as the bleakest of writers, Charles Dickens believed you could find lighter moments in darker times. Here are some quotes from the literary icon… aside from “please, sir, I want some more.”

Happy Birthday, Mr. Dickens.

Image via The British Library

1. “The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again.”

2. “Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts.”

3. “There is nothing so strong or safe in an emergency of life as the simple truth.”

4. “We forge the chains we wear in life.”

5. “A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”

6. “We need never be ashamed of our tears.”

7. “A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other.”

8. “The men who learn endurance, are they who call the whole world, brother.”

9. “This is a world of action, and not for moping and droning in.”

10. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

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October 25, 2018

17 Pieces of Wisdom from Zadie Smith

Today is the 43^rdbirthday of Zadie Smith— a literary powerhouse whose first novel, White Teeth, was published when she was twenty-five. Biracial and the daughter of a Jamaican immigrant, Smith uses recurring motifs of personal, familial, and cultural histories— three things which are occasionally the exact same thing and just as occasionally contradictory to each other. Now a tenured professor at NYU, Smith continues to explore race, class, and the reaches of fate in a way that makes them less of topics to discuss and more of worlds to climb into. To celebrate, here are seventeen quotes on life, writing, and perception from Smith’s full body of novels and essay collections.

White Teeth (2000)

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“We are so convinced of the goodness of ourselves, and the goodness of our love, we cannot bear to believe that there might be something more worthy of love than us, more worthy of worship. Greeting cards routinely tell us everybody deserves love. No. Everybody deserves clean water. Not everybody deserves love all the time.”

“Ridding oneself of faith is like boiling seawater to retrieve the salt— something is gained but something is lost.”

Martha and Hanwell (2003)

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“The more time I spend with the tail end of Generation Facebook (in the shape of my students) the more convinced I become that some of the software currently shaping their generation is unworthy of them. They are more interesting than it is. They deserve better.”

The Autograph Man (2003)

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“People don’t settle for people. They resolve to be with them. It takes faith. You draw a circle in the sand and agree to stand in it and believe in it.”

“He wanted to be in the world and take what came with it, endings local and universal, full stops, periods, looks of injured disappointment and the everyday war. He liked the everyday war. He was taking that with fries. To go.”

On Beauty (2005)

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“And so it happened again, the daily miracle whereby interiority opens out and brings to bloom the million-petalled flower of being here, in the world, with other people.”

“Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone.”

Changing My Mind (2009)

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When you enter a beloved novel many times, you can come to feel that you possess it, that nobody else has ever lived there. You try not to notice the party of impatient tourists trooping through the kitchen (Pnin a minor scenic attraction en route to the canyon Lolita), or that shuffling academic army, moving in perfect phalanx, as they stalk a squirrel around the backyard (or a series of squirrels, depending on their methodology).

White novelists are not white novelists but simply “novelists,” and white characters are not white characters but simply “human,” and criticism of both is not partial or personal but a matter of aesthetics. Such critics will always sound like the neutral universal, and the black women who have championed Their Eyes Were Watching God in the past, and the one doing so now, will seem like black women talking about a black book.

NW (2012)

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“Not everyone wants this conventional little life you’re rowing your boat toward. I like my river of fire. And when it’s time for me to go I fully intend to roll off my one person dinghy into the flames and be consumed. I’m not afraid.”

“I am the sole author of the dictionary that defines me.”

The Embassy of Cambodia (2013)

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“There’s always somebody who wants to be the Big Man, and take everything for themselves, and tell everybody how to think and what to do. When, actually, it’s he who is weak. But if the Big Men see that yousee that they are weak they have no choice but to destroy you. That is the real tragedy.”

“If we followed the history of every little country in this world—in its dramatic as well as its quiet times—we would have no space left in which… to apply ourselves to our necessary tasks, never mind indulge in occasional pleasures… Surely there is something to be said for drawing a circle around our attention and remaining within that circle. But how large should this circle be?”

Swing Time (2016)

“People aren’t poor because they make bad choices. They make bad choices because they’re poor.”

“My rage was the only thing keeping me awake, I was feeding off it in that righteous way you can if you never mention the wrong you are being done.”

Feel Free (2018)

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“I am seized by two contradictory feelings: there is so much beauty in the world it is incredible that we are ever miserable for a moment; there is so much shit in the world that it is incredible we are ever happy for a moment.”

“Between propriety and joy choose joy.”

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October 19, 2018

11 Quotes of Infinite Wisdom from Philip Pullman

Philip Pullman has managed to captivate readers with his unique and immersive stories. Noted as the author of the famed His Dark Materials series as well as other renowned novels, the author has made a well-deserved name for himself. Among his many literary feats, Pullman even wrote the entire series with the same exact pen! That’s a lot of ink! So, in honor of his birthday today, here are eleven quotes about life, love, and much more from the beloved author.

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We don’t need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do’s and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.

True education flowers at the point when delight falls in love with responsibility.

If you can’t think of what to write, tough luck; write anyway. If you can think of lots more when you’ve finished the three pages, don’t write it; it’ll be that much easier to get going next day.

One curious thing about growing up is that you don’t only move forward in time; you move backwards as well, as pieces of your parents’ and grandparents’ lives come to you.

Argue with anything else, but don’t argue with your own nature.

Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it.

The function of a book or a poem or a story is to delight, to enchant, to beguile.

Authors are not a special case, deserving of more sympathy than many other groups. We are a particular case of a general degradation of the quality of life, and we are not going to stop pointing it out, because we speak for many other groups as well.

If a nation allows its literary culture to die, it’s a sign that it doesn’t fundamentally care.

The arts are beyond price; they’re beyond value. They’re of incalculable worth in what it means to be a human being.

The best sort of activity is one that combines mental effort with sensuous delight. That’s why I love drawing.

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July 17, 2018

22 Great ‘Song of Ice and Fire’ Quotes That Didn’t Make It into the Show

George R.R. Martin is well known as a master storyteller. People frequently praise his world-building, his shocking twists and intricate histories. But as aspect of his writing that I see praised less often is the writing itself. My e-book copies of A Song of Ice and Fire are riddled with highlights, because every other page I’ll come across a line that takes my breath away. Here are some of my favorite quotes found in the books that the Game of Thrones fans may not be familiar with.

“Black and white and grey, all the shades of truth.”

“The grey sheep have closed their eyes, but the mastiff sees the truth. Old powers waken. Shadows stir. An age of wonder and terror will soon be upon us, an age for gods and heroes.”

“Darkness will be your cloak, your shield, your mother’s milk. Darkness will make you strong.”

“When I was a boy, I dreamt that I could fly,” he announced. “When I woke, I couldn’t … or so the maester said. But what if he lied?”

“The morning had dawned clear and cold, with a crispness that hinted at the end of summer.”

“There is no creature on earth half so terrifying as a truly just man.”

“Many called her beautiful. She was not beautiful. She was red, and terrible, and red.”

“I prefer my history dead. Dead history is writ in ink, the living sort in blood.”

“On the morning after the battle, the crows had feasted on victors and vanquished alike, as once they had feasted on Rhaegar Targaryen after the Trident. How much can a crown be worth, when a crow can dine upon a king?”

“Every man should lose a battle in his youth, so he does not lose a war when he is old.”

“War makes monsters of us all.”

“The world is one great web, and a man dare not touch a single strand lest all the others tremble.”

“Men live their lives trapped in an eternal present, between the mists of memory and the sea of shadow that is all we know of the days to come.”

“A man must know how to look before he can hope to see.”

“Some had been heroes, some weaklings, knaves, or cravens. Most were only men—quicker and stronger than most, more skilled with sword and shield, but still prey to pride, ambition, lust, love, anger, jealousy, greed for gold, hunger for power, and all the other failings that afflicted lesser mortals. The best of them overcame their flaws, did their duty, and died with their swords in their hands. The worst…
The worst were those who played the game of thrones.”

“This was a place of deep silence and brooding shadows, and the gods who lived here had no names.”

“When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.”

“Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it’s always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining.”

“It is night in your Seven Kingdoms now,” the red woman went on, “but soon the sun will rise again. The war continues, Davos Seaworth, and some will soon learn that even an ember in the ashes can still ignite a great blaze.”

“He made plans to keep himself sane, built castles of hope in the dark.”

“It all goes back and back. To our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads.”

“Sleep is good,” he said. “And books are better.”

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