This has been a long week. Between the election debates and the stresses of everyday life it feels a little like the end of the world. Fortunately, there are words out there that are perfect for times such as these. So for those people who are feeling especially thoughtful today, take a break and consider excerpts from a couple of books that you haven’t thought about for a while. You may love reading. You may not have touched a book for pleasure since your “The Magic Treehouse” days. Regardless, you are virtually guaranteed to know some of these iconic books. Step into some of the most magical (and applicable) quotes from the literature of the past two centuries...
“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien
The Fellowship of the Ring
"You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."
-- Atticus Finch
To Kill A Mockingbird
"It may be unfair, but what happens in a few days, sometimes a single day, can change the course of a lifetime."
The Kite Runner
"You're mad. Bonkers. Off your head... But I'll tell you a secret... All of the best people are.
-Lewis Carroll
Alice in Wonderland
“You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
― A.A. Milne
Winnie-The-Pooh
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good”
― C.S. Lewis
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
“I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race - that rarely do I even simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant...I am haunted by humans.”
― Markus Zusak
The Book Thief
“I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then”
― Lewis Carroll
Through the Looking Glass
“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.”
― Margery Williams
The Velveteen Rabbit
“You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen.”
― Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
― J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
“Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.' 'You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.”
― E.B. White
Charlotte's Web
“Bran thought about it. 'Can a man still be brave if he's afraid?'
'That is the only time a man can be brave,' his father told him.”
― George R.R. Martin
A Game of Thrones
“If you wish to be happy,Eragon, Think not of what is to come nor of that which you have no control over but rather of the now and that which you are able to change"
― Christopher Paolini
Brisingr
“Let the wild rumpus start!”
― Maurice Sendak
Where the Wild Things Are
“Much more surprising things can happen to anyone who, when a disagreeable or discouraged thought comes into his mind, just has the sense to remember in time and push it out by putting in an agreeable, determinedly courageous one. Two things cannot be in one place.”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Garden
“Listen to the mustn'ts, child,
Listen to the don'ts
Listen to the shouldn'ts
The IMPOSSIBLES, the won'ts
Listen to the never haves
Then listen close to me—
Anything can happen, child,
Anything can be.”
― Shel Silverstein
Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein
"I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. I know I can.”
― Watty Piper
The Little Engine That Could
Damn. Aren't books wonderful?
