Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature/meme brought to you by the folks over at The Broke and the Bookish (the button also belongs to them). This week’s theme is your Top Ten Favorite Quotations* From Books.
I’m terrible at remembering book quotations, but here are a few culled from my memory and verified by Goodreads…
1. “History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of ‘history’ it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time — and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.” –Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson
2. “Happiness is the most natural thing in the world when you have it, and the slowest, strangest, most impossible thing when you don’t.” —Partials by Dan Wells
3. “In a world where Marilyn Manson can’t shock anyone anymore, Marcus knows that wearing the Backstreet Boys T-shirt is one of the most subversive things that he– being “Krispy Kreme,” after all– can do. He thinks it’s funny. It is.” —Sloppy Firsts by Megan McCafferty
4. “To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” —Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
5. “In a perfect world everything would be either black or white, right or wrong, and everyone would know the difference. But this isn’t a perfect world. The problem is people who think it is.” —Unwind by Neal Shusterman
6. “On Saturday mornings during deliveries, I’d practice picking out new words in Jane Eyre, sounding out the ones that needed sounding out—and I’m not lying, there were plenty. “‘A new servitude! There is something in that,’ I soliloquized.” I mean, who talks like that? Do you know how long it takes to sound out a word like soliloquized? And even after you do, you have no idea what the stupid word means except that it probably just means “said,” which is what stupid Charlotte Brontë should have said in the first place. When I delivered Mrs. Mason’s groceries, she saw that I had Jane Eyre stuck under my arm. “Oh,” she said, “that was my favorite novel in school.” “It was?” I soliloquized.” —Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt
7. “Reader, I married him.” —Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
8. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’–that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.” —“Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats
Got any good quotations to share with me?
*My 10th grade English teacher had a pet peeve about using the word “quote” as a noun when that is actually the verb and “quotation” is the noun. Hence my use of the word “quotation.”
Don't Take My Books Away 
Love that you included a QUOTATION from Ode on a Grecian Urn! That’s really going way back, old school!
We spent weeks and weeks on that poem in a class I took in college and the thing is, I still have no idea what Keats meant by those closing lines. That doesn’t stop me from thinking about it, though!
That’s a great quote from Unwind!
I know! It’s a great book, too, if you haven’t read it!!
Actually just finished it this weekend. I had trouble getting past the premise until the Admiral explained how it happened 2/3rds of the way thru the book. Cause the compromise reached wouldn’t really address the issues of either side as it stands now. Once explained I could understand, but I was quite a ways into the book at that point.
😦 I can understand that… I guess I could kind of see unwinding as a compromise because it does protect life (in a weird way) and allow for choice (also in a weird way). I also listened to this on audio and I seem to be much more patient with audiobooks than I am with actual books. I need to work on my critical listening skills, I guess!
So glad you included a quote from Unwind:) And I can’t wait to hear what you think when you read Second Helpings:)
It’s the next thing I’m checking out from the library!!
Yes! I’ve got that quote from Jane Eyre on my list too! I love these ones – makes me remember some old favorite books (Unwind!!!)
Mmmm…Unwind, Partials, Harry Potter…you got yourself some good quotes! Hadn’t heard of Sloppy Firsts, but that quote made me want to read it!! 🙂
I just finished it last night and really enjoyed it! I am all for characters who ironically wear BSB shirts!!!
Oh! Your quote from Jane Eyre. God, I love the pants off that book. I love when she returns to him and he takes her hand and says ” Her fingers, her very fingers”–or something like it (I didn’t look it up because that would require me walking upstairs). Awesome choice!
I love Jane Eyre, too… it’s the only book I reread every year or two!!
I wish I had a well-organized mind but I think you’re alone there, Dumbledore. Great list of quotes! ♥
Oooh I love that Fear and Loathing quote. Such an amazing passage. Great list, Elizabeth!
Thanks, Julie! I always giggle about the part of “hired bullshit” since I used to be aiming for a career as a historian…