Top Ten Favorite Quotes from Books

Tuesday, May 8, 2012


This week's Top Ten from The Broke and the Bookish asks for my Top Ten Favorite Quotes from Books.

1) “Let me be something every minute of every hour of my life…And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.” — A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

2) "You must never feel badly about making mistakes, as long as you take the trouble to learn from them. For you often learn more by being wrong than you do by being right for the wrong reasons." — The Phantom Tollbooth

3) “I realized that you can get so used to certain luxuries that you start to think they’re necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don’t need them after all.” — Half Broke Horses

4) "The world is a great book...they who never stir from home read only a page." — St. Augustine

5) "What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren’t long enough for the reading she wanted to do.” — The Uncommon Reader

6) “But we are living in a skeptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generations, educated or hyper-educated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belong to an older day.” — Dubliners

7) “By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourself of money enough to travel and to idle, to contemplate the future or the past of the world, to dream over books and loiter at street corners and let the line of thought dip into the stream." — A Room of One’s Own

8) “Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.” — I Capture the Castle

9) “It could be said that they are still people who consider a bookshelf as a mere storage place for already read books and do not think of the library as a working tool.” — A Passion for Books

10) "I ordered a coffee and a little something to eat and savored the warmth and dryness. Somewhere in the background Nat King Cole sang a perky tune. I watched the rain beat down on the road outside and told myself that one day this would be twenty years ago." – Notes From a Small Island

BONUS QUOTES:
“America has never quite grasped that you can live in a place without making it ugly, that beauty doesn’t have to be confined behind fences, as if a national park were a sort of zoo for nature.” — The Lost Continent

"That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to comprehend. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence Voldemort knows and understands nothing." – Harry Potter Book 7

“No one knows how greatness comes to a man. It may lie in his blackness, sleeping, or it may lance into him like those driven fiery particles from outer space. These things, however, are known about greatness: need gives it life and puts it in action; it never comes without pain; it leaves a man changed, chastened, and exalted at the same time – he can never return to simplicity.” — Sweet Thursday


“The writer's way is rough and lonely, and who would choose it while there are vacancies in more gracious professions, such as, say, cleaning out ferryboats?” — Dorothy Parker


Image from here .

18 comments:

Sandy Nawrot said...

I LOVE that quote from I Capture the Castle. I don't aggregate my favorite quotes anywhere. I really should do that.

Anne said...

I just finished I Capture the Castle yesterday, such a beautiful book!

Jeanne said...

Dorothy Parker should always come at the end! Unless Oscar Wilde is in the lineup.

Trish said...

I love A Tree Grows in Brooklyn! I have a quote from that book today too. Also I Capture The Castle is on my TBR shelf - I can't wait to get to it :)

West Virginia Red said...

Love the one from The Uncommon Reader. And additionally Parker is a goddess.

Ana S. said...

Some great choices, Melissa. Note to self: read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn!

B said...

Great choices! I am especially drawn to the passage from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn that you quoted. I've never read the novel, but now I really want to!

*ೃ༄ Jillian said...

WOW. #10 gave me shivers. You picked some excellent quotes, Melissa! You have me wanting to read some of these books.

I hope you're well. :-)

Joanne said...

I love your quotes! I could go on and on and on with this topic as there are so many to choose. :)

Jenners said...

A most excellent collection. I should start writing down quotes from books that stick with me. I tend to forget way to easily.

Dale said...

I loved The Phantom Tollbooth when I was a kid. I remember seeing a movie version of it, also. I hadn't thought of it in years. Thanks for the reminder!

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Sandy - I constantly write quoets down. When I was in college I would keep a giant poster size piece of handmade paper on my wall and add quotes from things I was reading throughout the year. When it was full I would laminate it and start a new one.

Anne - I loved that one! It was one of my Top Ten books of 2010.

Jeanne - Yes! Wilde is the only one who could follow her.

Trish - I think you'd like Castle, it's a beautiful coming-of-age story.

West Virginia Red - You just can't beat Parker's wit.

Nymeth - You've got to read that one. I think you'd love Francie and find her mother Katie fascinating.

Brenna - I think you'd love it!

Jillian - I love that one. I read it while I was studying abroad in London and it has always stuck with me.

Joanne - I know, obviously I couldn't even keep myself to the top ten.

Jenners - I constantly write them down. If I love a line from an audiobook I'm listening to I make a voice memo of it on my phone and write it out later.

Dale - I just reread it after receiving an annotated copy in December. It's still wonderful!

Becki @ TheFlutterbyRoom said...

Those were some beautiful quotes. I really liked the Harry Potter one - it was quite unusual.

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Becki - I always loved that one because it got to the heart of the series.

Roof Beam Reader said...

Love this:

“I realized that you can get so used to certain luxuries that you start to think they’re necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don’t need them after all.”

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Adam - It's so true!

Christine Chioma said...

I loved "The Phantom Tollbooth". When I said I wanted to quote children's books I definitely had that one in mind.

I also love the quote you did from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn! I haven't heard of Sweet Thursday but it sounds good from that quote!

Melissa (Avid Reader) said...

Christine-Chioma - Sweet Thursday is a Steinbeck novel (the sequel to Cannery Row). It's wonderful!