Nineteen. An age that, unless you live in or near Canada, usually goes forgotten. Eighteen is the age where you are finally legal, and twenty marks the end of your teenage years. Nineteen is a forgotten age, but it should still be celebrated. With another year of life comes another year of trials, tribulations, and moments that help us to learn and grow.
As a nineteen-year-old, I still have a whole lot to learn, but I also have acquired quotes that inspired and awed me throughout my life. The nineteen literary quotes that helped me through nineteen years include:
1. “You can’t erase what you know. You can’t forget who you are.”
- "The House on Mango Street
2. “I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn’t get — and never would.”
- "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
3. “Maybe we just lived between hurting and healing.”
- "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe"
4. “Being loved is not the same thing as loving.”
- “The Type”
5. “My idea of good company is the company of clever, well-informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is what I call good company.”
- "Persuasion"
6. “Accept who you are; and revel in it.”
- "Tuesdays with Morrie"
7. “Answerless questions can destroy you. Move on.”
- "Every Day"
8. “We will be judged by how well we love.”
- "Desdemona"
9. “I am an emotional, devotional, incandotional creature.”
- "I Am an Emotional Creature"
10. “I like it when someone gets excited about something. It’s nice.”
- "The Catcher in the Rye"
11. “May you fight your own battles and forge your own wings.”
- "Carry On"
12. “There’s more to life than being a passenger.”
- "Love Letters to the Dead"
13. “It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow up to be.”
- "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire"
14. “Love the world and yourself in it, move through it as though it offers no resistance, as though the world is your natural element.”
- "The Time Traveler's Wife"
15. “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."
- "Hamlet"
16. “You kill your future by mourning your past.”
- "Whiskey, Words & a Shovel II"
17. “It is not what we think or feel that makes us who we are. It is what we do. Or fail to do.”
- "Sense and Sensibility"
18. “Having dreams never killed anybody.”
- "The Sun is Also a Star"
19. “Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.”
- "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Nineteen is young, but within those years, I’ve learned a lot. I hope that, as I get older, I read more quotes that inspire, surprise, and teach me more than I could know by myself.
