Daily Literature Quotes

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is...

“You don’t write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say.”

If school has taught me anything about literature, it's that many tales were meant to educate people about something that was never known before. The corruption of the twenties, the horrible treatment in africa, or the investigation of the meat industry are just three examples of exposures we have received thanks to people who took a pen to paper. Writing is another voice that we have and without it, many people would be deprived of different parts of their voice that still shake the earth to this day.

[Noblejanobii]

I'm going to be preemptively closing this until July 21 (or shortly there after) because I will be quite absent until then. Hope to see you all soon! Feel free to submit more quotes while I'm gone though!

[Noblejanobii]

Welcome Back!

So here we are again with the official re-opening of the Daily Literature Quotes! I asked you guys to submit me quotes while this was closed but no one did. Thankfully I've skilled got plenty of quotes up my sleeve and to start us off I thought I'd post a quote from my latest read and favorite novel, The Night Circus. @solivagant knows it well.

You think, as you walk away from Le Cirque des Rêves and into the creeping dawn, that you felt more awake within the confines of the circus.
You are no longer quite certain which side of the fence is the dream.

As you'll recall, I did another quote from The Night Circus long ago at the suggestion of Solivagant. At the time I was completely unaware of the novel's true mastery. Then, while preparing to go to Italy, I realized I had left the book I had intended to read on the flight and during the trip at home, and given I was in the Newark airport at the time, there was no going back for it. So I went to the Hudson bookstore and began to skim the shelves the books and low and behold there was The Night Circus. As you can imagine, I was stoked to read it and had planned to read it first, but then I found Darkest Magic and Morgan Rhodes has me hooked like a fish so I had to read that and then a summer reading book before I got to the lovely wonder of a book. You can read my review of it here, but that's not the point of this quote.

One of my favorite parts of this book is that it has four main characters, and you, the reader, are one of them. It throws you into Le Cirque des Rêves or the Circus of Dreams, as a first time visitor that explores the place. Often times, Morgenstern would drop a hint or some foreshadowing in one of the parts of the book that you are in and then explain what it meant later on in someone else's perspective. You can ask my parents, I did not book this book down once I picked it up, it was so good. Anyway, the book begins and ends from your perspective and these are the last lines of the book. After reading these, I started to think about how I usually feel after I've read a book and I realized that, often times I feel like the book is more real than my own life, and if the books I read are on one side of the fence, where those worlds feel so much more alive than mine, then my life is the other side, and it doesn't feel quite as vibrant. This is by far one of my favorite literature quotes ever and don't be surprised if you see more quotes from this book later on.

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is...

Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby.

Thank you to @Fate for submitting this quote!

George Bernard Shaw, always with the inspirational quotes that ring true in so many ways. They do say to find a job you'll like otherwise you'll never excell. I think that's what Shaw is trying to say here. Pick a job that you'll enjoy because otherwise work will never be enjoyable for you. It can be hard but if you find something you like then even the most difficult of tasks can be amazingly fun.

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is...

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

Thank you @solivagant for submitting today's quote!

Such a powerful quote coming from a powerful woman, it only seems fitting. Hearing this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt doesn't surprise me either. Her husband is the only president to have more than two terms, but he also had one of the most well kept media secrets of all time, polio. While it seems like an obvious fact now, back then not many people were aware that President FDR had polio and those who did went out of their way to keep it secret. No doubt, FDR faced all sorts of problems, mentally and physically, due to polio, but I can't help but feel that it's possible he suffered depression as well. While I am not exactly sure when it came out that FDR did have polio, I do not doubt it was while Eleanor was still alive, and since she lived almost twenty years longer than he did, the mockery and threats that she must have faced in light of this information must have been overwhelming. Eleanor is hailed as one of the strongest First Ladies to have ever lived, and I have no doubt it is because she never let anything said about herself or her husband get to her.

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is…

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Ah The Great Gatsby, one of my favorite books of all time. These are the final lines of the rollercoaster that is this book. They're interesting to look at, really, and very thought provoking. Personally, I think it means that we are no more or less normal than the person next to us, that while we affect each other, truly it is the current of life that guides us towards our destinies. Or something along those lines. But what do you think?

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is...

“You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.”

Every person has encountered some sort of creative block in their life. Often times, it becomes very difficult to get it back, and you have to hunt for it relentlessly to get it back. Inspiration strikes at the oddest times and it can be very easy to lose it if you don't have the amount of concentration and time necessary to sustain it.

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is...

“He stays,
the Unicorn,
In captivity…
Yet look again-
His horn is free,
Rising above Chain, fence, and tree.”

If you know anything about me, you know that I love unicorns. This poem is talking about the famous Unicorn Tapestries, and the images they depict. Given that it's supposed to represent Christ, and they're one of my favorite artistic pieces, I was ecstatic to find out there was a poem about them. I believe it captures the essence of the tapestries very well. Writings on art have always fascinated me, and this is a perfect example as to why.

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is…

These were too old to fight, but they were fluent orators, and sat on the tower like cicadas that chirrup delicately from the boughs of some high tree in a wood.

I didn't do the RNG today because the cicadas won't shut up and I found it highly amusing that Homer actually references how loud these things are in The Iliad. Even he knew how annoying these things were, to the point where he compared the men commenting on Helen of Troy to these loud bugs!

[Noblejanobii]

Today's Daily Literature Quote is…

“He heard people singing. Behind him, across vast distances of space and time, from the place he had left, he thought he heard music too. But perhaps it was only an echo.”

These are the final lines of the classic story The Giver. Overall it's a very interesting story but these lines themselves are impactful because of the fact that it reflects on the changes that can be made once a person has left and how similar where they left is to where they are going. Never again in the Giver's four book series do we see Jonas's home, except for a brief glimpse at it in The Son but given it's the same setting as when Jonas is there, that doesn't really count. We never see what happened to Jonas's home and it's interesting to see how it's very possible the place changed, just as Jonas and The Giver wanted, but when Jonas receives a chance to that change, he refuses, as if he believes change was never possible for that place. It's quite the fascinating concept especially if you've read the book.