Much to the disdain of my practical friends and family, my primary major is English (with a concentration in British Literature). These quotes from my favorite works express why I write, why I read, and why I chose- and love- to study Literature.

15. “Don't give in to your fears. If you do, you won't be able to talk to your heart.” – Paul Coelho, The Alchemist

14. “My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.” – Ayn Rand, Anthem

13. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

12. “Oh let time not deceive you, you cannot conquer time.”- W. H. Auden, As I Walked Out One Evening

11. “There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.”- Bram Stroker, Dracula

10. “Tomorrow is always fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.”- L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

9. “Journeys end in lovers meeting.”- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

8. “Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.”- Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

7. “After all, tomorrow is another day.”-Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

6. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in, this petty pace from day to day…”-William Shakespeare, Macbeth

5. "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars."- Jack Kerouac, On the Road

4. "Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind."- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote

3. "Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing."- Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray

2. “But O heart, heart, heart, O the bleeding drops of red, for on the deck my captain lies, fallen cold and dead.”-Walt Whitman, O Captain, My Captain

1. “Quoth the raven: ‘Nevermore!’”-Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven