Tuesday, March 6, 2018

Top 10 Favorite Book Quotes

This is a fun weekly meme hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week's topic is favorite book quotes, which is right up my alley! I have been collecting my favorite bookish quotes for years now, writing them down in a black leather notebook, and referring back to them year after year. I love me a good quote.  The hardest part with this post was deciding which ones to post...and limiting myself to only ten. But I did my best, choosing quotes from 5 recent reads, and 5 classics. Here they are:




"If the books I have read have helped to form me, then probably nobody else who ever lived has read exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books as me. So just as my genes and the soul within me make me uniquely me, so I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA."
--Susan Hill, Howards End is on the Landing  



"By hook or by crook, I hope that you will possess yourselves 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 deep into the stream."
--Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own  




Look out the window.
See a bird.
Enjoy it.
Congratulations.  You are a bad birdwatcher.

--Simon Barnes, How to Be a (Bad) Birdwatcher



"If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost, that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
--Henry David Thoreau, Walden   





"Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what have you had?"
--Henry James, The Ambassadors 








"You can't find love if you're not willing to lose it. You can't find happiness if you're not willing to risk being sad. And you can't find the love of your life without risking breaking your heart."
--Kunal Nayyar, Yes, My Accent is Real




"Sometimes we know in our bones what we really need to do, but we're afraid to do it. Taking a chance and stepping beyond the safety of the world we've known is the only way to grow, though and without risk there is no reward."
--Wil Wheaton, Just A Geek   





"Perhaps all dragons in our lives are really princesses just waiting to see us just once being beautiful and courageous."
--Rainer Maria Rilke,  Letters to a Young Poet





"Every time I overcome my personal fears and prove something to myself, I want to set the bar a little higher. In my life, and in all our lives, there should be no limitations, only possibilities."
--Rachael Scordis, No End in Sight 








"He made a picture of his life and I was fit in it. He wanted, too, to imprison me in his dream. But I am I. I don't want to dream anyone else's dream. I want to dream my own."
--W. Somerset Maugham, The Narrow Corner




Happy Reading!

36 comments:

  1. Love these quotes!! The Henry James is my favorite :)

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    1. Isn't that a great one? I love Henry James!

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  2. Great quotes, especially the Virginia Woolf.

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  3. These are all lovely! I'm not good at remembering or writing down book quotes, so I didn't do TTT today, but I'm enjoying reading the quotes other people love.

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    1. If I hadn't written these down I'd never remember them either. ;D

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  4. Thanks Lark. So many wonderful quotes about the importance of taking chances in life. I like the Walden quote and I also think Susan Hill made a point I'd never thought of that we all have a "literary DNA" and that none of us has read "exactly the same books, all the same books and only the same books as me".

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    1. Isn't that a great idea: "Literary DNA"?
      And Thoreau is one of my favorite authors...I could have done this whole post just with quotes from him. :)

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  5. I love these! I’m so impressed with everyone’s top ten Tuesday today! I’m horrible at highlighting book quotes so I quickly forget them.

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    1. I'm not as good at writing book quotes down as I once was. But I do love being able to reread the ones I have written down. :)

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  6. Great quotes. I think the Kunal Nayyar quote is my favorite.

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    1. Isn't that a good one? His book is pretty funny, too.

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  7. Nice classics here!! I have a few also!
    http://justmeandmyblogreviews.blogspot.com/2018/03/top-ten-tuesday-book-quotes.html

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    1. Thanks for visiting! Can't wait to see your top 10 quotes. :)

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  8. I love all of those! A Room of One's Own is such a quotable book.

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    1. Isn't it? Woolf had such a way of putting things.

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  9. Great meme! Unfortunately I never think to note quotable passages generally. Tho blogging and reviewing on goodreads helps!

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  10. That Susan Hill quote is absolute perfection - I love it!

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    1. It's a great one, isn't it? (It's from a great book, too.) Thanks for commenting! :)

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  11. Those are great quotes. I especially like Henry James' The Ambassadors. :)

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  12. I LOVE that quote from Rainer Maria Rilke. <3

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  13. Ha ha! I love the birdwatcher quote. That's funny. Thanks for stopping by my blog.

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  14. I never bother writing down quotes unless I find a specific one I want to put in my reviews but that is pretty rare.

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    1. Not everyone has to be obsessed with bookish quotes like me. ;D

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  15. These are great quotes! I read Howard's End is on the Landing a couple of years ago. I don't remember a lot about it, but I remember liking it!

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  16. Beautiful quotes! I especially liked the one from The Ambassadors. I haven't read any Henry James and it looks like I'm missing out.

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    1. Some people think James is hard to read, but I love the way he writes.

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  17. Wonderful quotes, all of them! I especially love this bit from the first one: "I am the unique sum of the books I have read. I am my literary DNA." YES.

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    1. Isn't that an awesome quote? I love it, too. :)

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