Top Ten Tuesday - Favorite Book Quotes

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Well, what do you know? I'm back again this week!

These were SO hard to narrow down! (In no particular order)

1. “Sometimes being a bitch is all a woman's got to hold on to.” ― Stephen King, Dolores Claiborne
   
2. “Memories, even your most precious ones, fade surprisingly quickly. But I don’t go along with that. The memories I value most, I don’t ever see them fading.” ― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
   
3. “I saw a new world coming rapidly. More scientific, efficient, yes. More cures for the old sicknesses. Very good. But a harsh, cruel, world. And I saw a little girl, her eyes tightly closed, holding to her breast the old kind world, one that she knew in her heart could not remain, and she was holding it and pleading, never to let her go.” ― Kazuo Ishiguro, Never Let Me Go
   
4. “I’m not like the rest of you; I never made any plans about what I’d do when I grew up; I never thought of being married, as you did. I couldn’t seem to imagine myself anything but stupid little Beth, trotting about at home, of no use anywhere but there. I never wanted to go away, and the hard part now is leaving you all. I’m not afraid, but it seems as if I should be homesick for you even in heaven.” ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
   
5. “There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”
   ― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
   
6. “May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—May she wake in torment!" he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion. "Why, she's a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where? Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”
   ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
   
7. “... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
   ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
   
8. “Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
   ― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones
   
9. “Give me a man or woman who has read a thousand books and you give me an interesting companion. Give me a man or woman who has read perhaps three and you give me a very dangerous enemy indeed.” ― Anne Rice, The Witching Hour
   
10. “None of us really changes over time. We only become more fully what we are.”
    ― Anne Rice, The Vampire Lestat
    
    ...and a bonus quote because it's from my favorite book.
    
11. “It's an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn't destroy us, if it doesn't burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.”
    ― Anne Rice, The Queen of the Damned

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Saturday Quotes Day (1)

My lovely friend, Rebecca at I'm Lost in Books has started a new meme (which I thought would be a great idea, by the way) so I'm joining in. Click her blog name above, or the image, if you'd like to join in.

from Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen and the Men Who Loved Her

"'I alas shall have no such comfort,' he sighs as together, full of smiles and tender care for each other still, he closes the casement and accompanies her to his chamber door where, with that final kiss upon her lips, he lets her go. Will it be like this for the rest of his life, he asks himself? Would the seasons come and go, and they two grow old and grey together, still always in love but never lovers? It would be a pleasant torment - but really, he knows it can never be sustained. There is no magic box of hers to store these joys and wonders. The world does not function that way, not even for a Queen of England. And that knowledge, as it steals its way into his meditations again and again this night, is the greater part of his sadness as he rests alone in his solitary bed."

from The Invention of Wings

"She laid the book down and came where I was standing by the chimney place and put her arms round me. It was hard to know where things stood. People say love gets fouled by a difference big as ours. I didn't know for sure whether Miss Sarah's feelings came from love or guilt. I didn't know whether mine came from love or a need to be safe. She loved me and pitied me. And I loved her and used her. It never was a simple thing. That day, our hearts were pure as they ever would get."

What quotes have moved you this week?

Profound Passages

I collect new books the way my girlfriends buy designer handbags. Sometimes, I just like to know I have them and actually reading them is beside the point. Not that I don't eventually end up reading them one by one. I do. But the mere act of buying them makes me happy-the world is more promising, more fulfilling. The whole act just cheers me up.

~Literacy and Longing in L.A., by Kaufman/Mack

Profound Passages

In honor of Banned Books Week:

If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.


— On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

Profound Passages

In honor of Banned Books Week:

Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.

~Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas ("The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 1953, p. 20)

Profound Passage Of The Day

"When you get in a tight place and everything goes against you, until it seems as if you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time when the tide will turn."
~Harriet Beecher Stowe

Profound Passage Of The Day

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

~Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, Ch. 20, 1850

Profound Passage Of The Day

"An inexhaustible good nature is one of the most precious gifts of heaven, spreading itself like oil over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather."

~Washington Irving

INTRODUCING....

Profound Passages will be a daily "quote" post.  This might be a book quote, a motivational or inspirational quote, a quote about the seasons, quotes or passages from famous works of literature, holiday quotes, poetry or anything quote worthy that I may find.  Everyone needs a little inspiration and I find that quotes help me to feel encouraged and motivated.  I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

A truly great book should be read in youth, again in maturity and once more in old age, as a fine building should be seen by morning light, at noon and by moonlight. 

~ Robertson Davies