It's been awhile since I participated in Top Ten Tuesday hosted by The Broke and The Bookish and I just couldn't pass this topic up. Below are my top ten favorite quotes from books.
"I believe that theres is one story in the world, and only one... Humans are caught - in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too - in a net of good and evil... there is no other story." - John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.” -Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye
“Another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise.” -Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye
"sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living." - Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
"and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in." -Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
"No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.” –George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur of think at some point, 'if this isn't nice, i don't know what is.'" – Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
"and I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; and I thought how it is worse perhaps to be locked in." -Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
"No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.” –George Eliot, Daniel Deronda
"I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur of think at some point, 'if this isn't nice, i don't know what is.'" – Kurt Vonnegut, A Man Without a Country
"Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing." -Sylvia Plath
"No matter how much you know, no matter how much you think, no matter how much you plot and connive and you plan, you're not superior to sex. It's a very risky game. A man wouldn't have two-thirds of the problems he has if he didn't venture off to get fucked. It's sex that disorders our normally ordered lives." - Philip Roth, The Dying Animal
"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live." - Johnathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
"She wanted a book to take her places that she couldn't get to herself." -Jeffrey Eugenides, The Marriage Plot
photo via nose in a book
photo via nose in a book
Very nice quotes! Love the one from Cat's Eye!
ReplyDeleteps - I'm anxious to read your thoughts on Alias Grace!
Couldn't agree more with the Steinbeck. The rest are awesome, too, but EOE is an all-time favorite. Makes me want to go back and read all the Steinbeck.
ReplyDeleteI love that Virginia Woolf quote- I really need to read A Room of One's Own! And YES to East of Eden. Ah, Steinbeck...
ReplyDeleteThat Eugenides quotes is one of my faves. Great list!
ReplyDeleteLove these quotes, especially the Atwood one. So much truth there...
ReplyDeleteGreat quotes. My centerpieces at my wedding were stacks of old books with a small frame on top. In each frame was an author's name and my favorite quote from them. The Vonnegut quote you used was one of the ones I used. Love it and the one from Atwood feels so true!
ReplyDeleteGreat choice of quotes!
ReplyDeleteI have a love/hate relationship with Philip Roth novels- but there are always some lines in them that really stand out and speak out to me.
I really need to read East of Eden.
Some excellent choices, and I also particularly love the one from Cat's Eye. So true.
ReplyDeleteLove these! Tempting me into some books I've been putting off. *coughTheMarriagePlotcough*
ReplyDeleteOooh, fantastic quotes! All of them are great -- I think my fav might be Jonathan Safran Foer but I could go for any of them -- excellent!
ReplyDeleteFantastic Sylvia Plath quote. Excellent list!
ReplyDeleteAngela @ AJ Arndt Books Blog
"sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living." - I'm in love with that quote.
ReplyDeleteI love the Atwood quote - can't believe I haven't read Cat's Eye yet. great list!
ReplyDeleteJoining you from Kate's Library who linked to this post.
ReplyDeleteSome great quotes here and all from books I haven't read. I think the one from Margaret Atwood is my favourite.
Anyway, nice to meet you, I've enjoyed my visit.
Excellent quotes! I particularly like the second to last.
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