"Write to me Emmi. Writing is like kissing, but without lips. Writing is Kissing with the mind".
This lovely quote from Daniel Glauttauer's Love Virtually (which, I've just finished reading and can highly recommend), got me thinking about many a fabulous thought contained within a book, and the profound effects that a single phrase or paragraph in a story can have on our lives.
With their own set of unique philosophies, some novels stay with us longer than others. And some passages within the book? Even more so.
Here are our top 10 favourite book quotes:
1. "Life's a freaking mess. In fact, I'm going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram's right, there's not one truth ever, just a bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other.
"It's all a beautiful calamitous mess. It's like the day Mr. James took us into the woods and cried triumphantly, "That's it! That's it!" to the dizzying cacophony of soloing instruments trying to make music together. That is it." — Jandy Nelson (The Sky Is Everywhere)
Tammy
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2. "Don't ever think I fell for you, or fell over you. I didn't fall in love, I rose in it." –Toni Morrison (Jazz)
Kele
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3. "Love like rain, can nourish from above, drenching couples with soaking joy. But sometimes, under the angry heat of life, love dries on the surface and must nourish from below, tending to its roots, keeping itself alive." — Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)
Carmen
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4. "Live each day as if it's your last', that was the conventional advice, but really, who had the energy for that? What if it rained or you felt a bit glandy? It just wasn't practical. Better by far to simply try and be good and courageous and bold and to make a difference.
Not change the world exactly, but the bit around you. Go out there with your passion and your electric typewriter and work hard at...something. Change lives through art maybe. Cherish your friends, stay true to your principles, live passionately and fully and well. Experience new things. Love and be loved, if you ever get the chance." — David Nicholls (One Day)
Tammy
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5. "Like any artist without an art form, she became dangerous" — Toni Morrison (Sula)
Kele
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6. "Although you may not stumble across a Martian in the garden, you might stumble across yourself. The day that happens, you'll probably also scream a little.
And that'll be perfectly all right, because it's not every day you realize you're a living planet dweller on a little island in the universe."— Jostein Gaarder (The Solitaire Mystery)
Tammy
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7. "A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men." — Roald Dahl (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory)
Carmen
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8. "Pass the damn ham, please." — Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Lauren
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9. "It's only a story.' As if such words made it less real. But I did not believe him even then, for stories were written down, and the words on the page were proof enough. Fixed and permanent in time, the words, if anything, made the people and places more real than the everchanging world."— Keith Donohue (The Stolen Child)
Tammy
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10. "So now you must choose... Are you a child who has not yet become world-weary? Or are you a philosopher who will vow never to become so? To children, the world and everything in it is new, something that gives rise to astonishment. It is not like that for adults.
"Most adults accept the world as a matter of course. This is precisely where philosophers are a notable exception. A philosopher never gets quite used to the world. To him or her, the world continues to seem a bit unreasonable - bewildering, even enigmatic. Philosophers and small children thus have an important faculty in common. The only thing we require to be good philosophers is the faculty of wonder…" — Jostein Gaarder (Sophie's World)
Tammy
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What are some of your favourite book quotes? Share them with us below.