I hope Iām not the only one who keeps a cache of book quotes to revisit. They are similar to song lyrics; they speak to you and nudge something deep inside of you. They just donāt have the catchy tune behind them that helps you remember the words.Ā
Iāve compiled some of my favorite quotes below that I hope you can relate to, laugh at, or ruminate over.
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Relatable Quotes
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āI could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
This is so well-stated and reveals a kind of self-awareness that I admire and aspire to have.Ā
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āI used to analyze myself down to the last thread, used to compare myself with others, recalled all the smallest glances, smiles and words of those to whom Iād tried to be frank, interpreted everything in a bad light, laughed viciously at my attempts āto be like the restā ā and suddenly, in the midst of my laughing, Iād give way to sadness, fall into ludicrous despondency and once again start the whole process all over again ā in short, I went round and round like a squirrel on a wheel.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
I think anyone with social anxiety can relate to this on some level. I often fall into the trap of over-analyzing everything I do in social situations, rebel against my own anxiety and declare āI donāt care,ā but ultimately get into a funk because, try as I might, I do care.Ā
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Amusing Quotes
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ā[Enter a devil]
I charge thee to return and change thy shape,
Thou art too ugly to attend me.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus (Scene 3, lines 23-24)
This one always makes me laugh. I read it in a college class, and the way my professor said these lines struck me funny. Faustus had the gall to conjure a devil and then send the devil back to Hell because he wasnāt pretty enough. That takes guts.
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āI kept this to remind me of you trying to brush away the Villa Rossa from your teeth in the morning, swearing and eating aspirin and cursing harlots. Every time I see that glass I think of you trying to clean your conscience with a toothbrush.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to ArmsĀ
Have you ever tried to clean your conscience with a toothbrush? I can just imagine him standing over the sink, brushing furiously away with a furrow in his brow, indignantly swearing heāll never be hung over again, knowing full well heāll fall into the same indiscretions. Itās not lol-funny, but it makes me smile.
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āA meeting is an arrangement whereby a large number of people gather together, some to say what they really do not think, some not to say what they really do.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Vladimir Voinovich, The Life & Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin
This satirical book is full of amusing commentary, and is still considered controversial in Russia because of its anti-Soviet and anti-WW2 sentiments, but this quote is a classic critique of suppression of opinions, acquiescence, and the lack of free speech.Ā
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āI like them to talk nonsense. Thatās manās one privilege over all creation.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
Pardon me if my memory fails me, but I believe Razumikhin said this in the novel (although it would be just as great of a quote if he didnāt). He was always making me giggle. People are often lorded over all of creation as the best species and the most intelligent life forms. Dostoevsky takes humankind down a notch by saying their only commendable difference is their ability to babble.
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āWhat a slut time is. She screws everybody.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
Oh John Green, King of Metaphors. Who doesnāt like metaphors? Iām just kidding, I know a lot of people who dislike metaphors, but Iām a sucker for them. Especially ones that make me laugh.
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Thought-provoking Quotes
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āBut itās the truth even if it didnāt happen.āĀ
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckooās Nest
This book will break your heart, and I think this quote embodies itās message of what it means to be ācrazyā and how enlightening a different perspective can be.Ā
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Ā āAnd what is an āinstantā death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – John Green, Looking for Alaska
This quote broke my heart when I first read it. I had never really given it a thought, but this quote made me question the comfort I feel when I hear that someone died an āinstant death.āĀ
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āTo go wrong in oneās own way is better than to go right in someone elseās.ā
Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā Ā – Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
This one is also from Razumikhin, one of my favorite literary characters. Be true to yourself, kids. Make mistakes and grow.
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Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish Quotes
This novel needed its own section. If youāve read my blog on my three favorite books, you know that I absolutely adore the quotes in this book.Ā
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āNever underestimate the passion of a lonely mind.ā
I had to immediately stop and write this down when I read it. Itās just one of those phrases that you recall every now and then and marvel at its beauty.Ā
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These quotes speak for themselves:
āAs soon as she spoke the words she heard their absolute absurdity. As though the world owed its creatures fairness.ā
āI do not fear my own thoughts, though the world may.ā
āHas she tried too hard to remake the world.ā
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āThat the distances between things were vast, vaster than I had known when I had sight. Everywhere I felt a void. Everywhere was hollow, Godās presence withdrawn. I walked with fingers outstretched and felt the brokenness of Godās world. […]
My sin that I confess now is to have wanted death. In secret I have longed for it, for blindness can never suffice to extinguish the sight of the terrors of this broken world.ā
This is spoken by a dying rabbi who had been tortured because he was a Jew and blinded because of it.Ā
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āAnd let me dispense with my foolish dream of leaving the tracery of my thought whole, perhaps to be read in an age in which there is greater kindness.Ā Ā
It is not such an age.
Let the truth be ash.ā
I think we can all relate to this. Itās sad to think that we havenāt reached an age with greater kindness.
1 Comment
So where to begin, again…First, both quotes by Dostoevsky are words to live by. Insightful and simply profound. But my favorite quote of all is the Voinovich quote about the makeup of meetings!