Quotes

One of the many, many things I love about reading is running across passages that really, really resonate with me.  Over the years, I've started writing down some of my favorites.  About a year and a half ago, I started actively trying to find at least one really good quote from every book I read and then using it in a rotation for a "quote of the day" in my classroom.  Since I'm no longer teaching, I now have this great collection of book quotes and no one to share them with.  So I decided to post them here so that other bibliophiles could enjoy them.  While all of these quotes spoke to me in some way, I'm going to refrain from explaining what that way was and let my readers form their own connections.  Happy reading!

"Of course they needed to care.  It was the meaning of everything."

- from The Giver by Lois Lowry

"Such welcome and unwelcome things at once

'Tis hard to reconcile."

- from Macbeth by William Shakespeare

"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. . . . 

until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

- from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

"Perhaps one did not want to be loved so much as understood."

- from 1984 by George Orwell

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

- from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

"A room without books is like a body without a soul."

- Marcus Tuillius Cicero

"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

- from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."

- Jorge Luis Borges

"Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself."

- George Bernard Shaw

"Books are a uniquely portable magic."

- Stephen King

"After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world."

- Philip Pullman

"It is our choices, Harry, that show us who we truly are, far more than our abilities."

- from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

"The question isn't who is going to let me;

it's who is going to stop me."

- Ayn Rand

"Reflect upon your present blessings--of which every man has many--

not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

- Charles Dickens

"Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation."

- Walter Cronkite

"We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading."

- B.F. Skinner

"Life is a constant struggle between being an individual and being a member of a community."

- from The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie

"Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they'll wait for you forever; 

pay attention to them and they always love you back."

- from An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

"And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."

- from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

"Life is full of screw-ups.

You're supposed to fail sometimes.

It's a required part of the human existence."

- from Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

"The more you know who you are, 

and what you want, 

the less you let things upset you."

- from Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

"All we are, all we can be, are the stories we tell.  Long after we are gone, our words will be all that is left, and who is to say what really happened or even what reality is?  Our stories, our fiction, our words will be as close to the truth as can be.  And no on can take that away from you."

- from Anything But Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

"Faith with proof is no faith at all."

- from The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness

"What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?"

- from An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting."

- from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

"So many things become beautiful when you really look."

- from Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

"But now I wonder--what if everyone is pretty much the same and it's just a thousand small choices that add up to the person you are?  No good or evil, no black and white, no inner demons or angels whispering the right answers in our ears like it's some cosmic SAT test.  Just us, hour by hour, minute by minute, day by day, making the best choices we can."

- from Black Heart by Holly Black

"I wanted to pull down a book, open it proper, and gobble up page after page."

- from Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson

"Taking no chances means wasting your dreams."

- from Crank by Ellen Hopkins

"He liked the mere act of reading, 

the magic turning of scratches on a page into words inside his head."

- from An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

"There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve:

the fear of failure."

- from The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

"We are the choices we make."

- from The Ask and the Answer the Patrick Ness

"Luckily, I always travel with a book."

- from Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn

"He who leaps for the sky may fall, it's true.

But he may also fly."

- from Delirium by Lauren Oliver

"There will always be more questions.

Every answer leads to more questions."

- from Every Day by David Levithan

"Sometimes, the hardest thing was doing nothing."

- Extras by Scott Westerfeld

"When it's right, it's simple."

- from Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

"Wherever you go, take yourself with you."

- from The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

"There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart.

So you'd better learn the sound of it.

Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying."

- from Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

"Without a filter, a man is just chaos walking."

- from The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness

"When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books."

- from Looking for Alaska by John Green

"Just because something isn't practical doesn't mean it's not worth creating.

Sometimes beauty and real-life magic are enough."

- from Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

". . . she made her home in between the pages of books."

- from Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

"In my classes, I will talk most of the time and you will listen most of the time.
Because you may be smart, but I've been smart longer."

- from Looking for Alaska by John Green

"Let's get this started, people.

It won't be long before we all lose our minds."

- from The Kill Order by James Dashner

"You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect.

You should expect it."

- from Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen

"Don't think or judge,

just listen."

- from Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

"And no matter what you do or how hard you try,

you can't stop yourself from dreaming."

- from It's Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han

"You won't even know you've crossed the line until it's way back in your review mirror."

- from I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

"If you dare nothing, then when the day is over, nothing is all you will have gained."

- from The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

"I was attempting to write the story of my life.

It wasn't so much about plot.  It was more about character."

- from Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn

"It's the little mistakes that lead to big mistakes."

- from I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore

"And for a moment--for a split second--everything else falls away, the whole pattern and order of their life, and a huge joy crests in my chest.  I am no one, and I owe nothing to anybody, and my life is my own."

- from Hana by Lauren Oliver

"Words are still  needed by everyone.  

Words are used to think with, to write with, to hope and pray with."

- from Frindle by Andrew Clements

"Face your life, its pain, its pleasure, leave no path untaken."

- from The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

"It's the choosing that's important."

- from The Giver by Lois Lowry

"You couldn't erase the past.  

You couldn't even change it.  

But sometimes life offered you the opportunity to put it right."

- from Girls in Pants by Ann Brashares

"Take pride in your pain;

you are stronger than those who have none."

- from Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

"People don't change who they are.

They only change what they do with it."

- from Forever by Maggie Stiefvater

"My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations."

- from The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

"All I could really think was how much I wanted to sleep.

How much I wanted to be in a different world other than the one I was in."

- from Hate List by Jennifer Brown

"People do it all the time--assume that they "know" what's going on in someone else's head.  That's impossible.  And to think it's possible is a mistake.  A really big mistake.  A life-ruining one if you're not careful."
- from Hate List by Jennifer Brown