by Shannon Fox
This TTT is hosted by Jen at The Broke and The Bookish. I’m really excited about this one because I’m the type of person who writes in their books, underlining their favorite passages. I’m not even sure if these are my true top ten for there are so many passages that it’s near impossible to rank them. So here is A top ten.
1. “But ‘Thou Mayest’ Why, that makes a man great, that gives him stature with the gods, for in his weakness and his filth and his murder of his brother he has still the great choice. He can choose his course and fight it through and win.” – John Steinbeck East of Eden
2.”The object of the artist is the creation of the beautiful.” -James Joyce A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
3. “My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” – John Green The Fault in Our Stars
4. “Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.” -David Levithan The Lover’s Dictionary
5. “There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up; holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship’s, smooths and contains the rocker. It’s an inside kind-wrapped tight like skin. Then there is a loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive, on its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one’s own feet going seem to come from a far-off place.
Everybody knew what she was called, but nobody anywhere knew her name. Disremembered and unaccounted for, she cannot be lost because no one is looking for her, and even if they were, how can they call her if they don’t know her name? Although she has claim, she is not claimed. In the place where long grass opens, the girl who waited to be loved and cry shame erupts into her separate parts, to make it easy for the chewing laughter to swallow her all away.” -Toni Morrison Beloved
6. “The contemplation of eternity within the very movement of life.” -Muriel Barbery The Elegance of the Hedgehog
7. “After all, what was the whole wide world but a place for people to yearn for their heart’s impossible desires, for those desires to become entrenched in defiance of logic, plausibility, and even the passage of time, as eternal as polished marble.” -Richard Russo Empire Falls
8.”It’s life that matters, nothing but life–the process of discovering, the everlasting and perpetual process, not the discovery itself, at all.” –Fyodor Dostoevsky The Idiot
9.”If you loved someone, you loved him, and when you had nothing else to give, you still gave him love” -George Orwell 1984
10. “I have finally concluded maybe that’s what life is about: there’s a lot of despair, but also the odd moments of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It’s as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that has come to us, an always within a never.” -Muriel Barbery The Elegance of the Hedgehog
Shannon Fox - Author 
So, at one point or another this week, I picked up both Empire Falls and Elegance of a Hedgehog and didn’t end up reading/buying either. Empire Falls I read through page 100 and still couldn’t get hooked. Elegance, I just haven’t bought yet, but hopefully will soon. Did you love them both? I’m inspired to read them now because of your quotes. I do SO SO SO love that quote from Lover’s Dictionary. Do you follow that on twitter because he posts more words there.
No I should totally follow the twitter! I did love them both. The thing about Elegance is that there’s a plot, but the point isn’t the plot. It’s a book you experience and not read. I really loved Empire Falls but it is a little hard to get into because he’s just so stuck in his life. But he eventually *spoiler, but i’m sure you can image* he finally finds a way to get unstuck.
Haha I will give it another go since you let out that little tidbit. 🙂
When/if you read it, let me know how you like it!
I also underline favorite/relevant/important passages as I read.
“Men’s memories are uncertain and the past that was differs little from the past that was not.” — Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian
(A recent favorite.)
I haven’t read that, but I’m now I’m interested to look into it! That’s a great quote! Thanks!
I’m reading 1984 right now and I just read the line you posted a few hours ago! It is a good one. The Top Ten this week overwhelmed me, so I didn’t participate, but I love all the great quotes I’ve gotten to read from it. Yours included!
Ahhh, I love both the quotes from The Elegance of the Hedgehog. Am currently reading that one, about 100 pages in and completely loving it. I’m actually not speeding through it because it’s just so lovely and almost mesmerising, I find myself slowing down, chewing on it some more, savouring each page in a way I haven’t done with a book for quite a while now. 😀
Yes!!! Exactly!! I think it’s a book to savor, to experience, rather than “read”. Let me know when you’re done!
I will let you know for sure, but I can’t see myself becoming disappointed in it at any point (unless, like, vampires suddenly appear in it, hahaha). 😀
Spoiler: They don’t. 😀
Beautiful quotes! Thanks for sharing! And I strongly agree and appreciated Levithan’s one 🙂
Every now and again I think about writing on my books, but I never do it. It makes me feel like I’m ruining them.
I’ve never read Dostoevsky, but I’ve watched the Japanese film adaptation of The Idiot. It’s certainly something I wouldn’t mind reading at one point.
How was that film?
I really liked it. It touches upon a lot of things that most movies normally don’t. First you have this frail, tragic protagonist, and both his romantic interests constantly abuse his kind nature. It is said that the existing cut of the film was despised by the director, since he initially planned it to span two different films. A complete, director’s cut was never available.
It’s an Akira Kurosawa film, so it’s highly recommended if anything just for that.
The First is probably My Favorite… Just Staggering
Thanks for Sharing
DarkJade-
Great quotes! I have a couple of those books on my TBR list 🙂