Wednesday, October 9, 2013

Favorite Quote from a Book

With all this talk about plagiarism (which happens when you quote somebody without giving them credit), we're choosing our favorite quotes from books today!

"I don't get nearly enough credit in life for the things I manage not to say."
That's from How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff. I read that for my YA lit class, so I was either 18 or 19, and this was just the best summation ever of how I felt about life in general. I'm less of a petulant teen now, but I still think this line is pretty funny, particularly with context (Daisy doesn't talk at all).

Bonus: My runner-up choice was from Wide Awake by David Levithan: "We are not taught 'love thy neighbor unless their skin is a different color from yours' or 'love thy neighbor unless they don't make as much money as you do' or 'love thy neighbor unless they don't share your beliefs.' We are taught 'love thy neighbor.' No exceptions. We are all in this together - every single one of us. And the only way we are going to survive as a society is through compassion."

"Brothers are not like sisters. They don't call each other every week. Will you be there for him if he needs you? Of course. Should you love him without question? Absolutely. But those are the easy things. Do you make him a large part of your life, an equal to a wife or a best friend? At the beginning, when you're kids, the answer is often yes. But when you get to high school, or older? Do you tell him everything? Do you let him know who you really are? The answer is usually no."

This is from Are We There Yet? by David Levithan (Which, if you haven't been convinced by now to go read him, DO IT.)  This whole book was pretty much wonderful (and probably one of my favorite Levithan books.)  But it's about two brothers, who don't get along and their parents force them onto a trip to Italy.  The older brother is having a conversation with his friend and it was just such a POIGNANT moment.  The friend (who is actually a passing character) just makes such a valid point and really drives home EXACTLY how I feel about my relationship with my siblings.

Runner up?  This little diddy from Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austin:

"From the very beginning— from the first moment, I may almost say— of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry."

She just totally rips him a new one, but it sounds like she's still being super polite.

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