Required reading is actually the bane of many of our existences. We put it off, we use the books as coasters or paperweights and we do everything in our power to avoid dedicating the time. More than anything, the idea of sacrificing even a second of your summer on a book that you didn't choose is absolutely ridiculous. And now I'm here to tell you that you have been doing it wrong the whole time.
So shame on you.
By skipping your required reading, you are not only missing out on the quiz that your teacher is inevitably going to give, but you're missing out on all of the valuable life lessons that you can take from these books. From lessons on love and resilience, there is truly nothing more beautiful than connecting with a book and getting something from the story. Relating to the honesty of a page, from the characters to the lessons, is one of the most rewarding and pure experiences a person can have. So I hope more than anything, that these quotes inspire you to read, to find a story that you connect with and never let it go.
I'm not here to lecture you, though. I am not your mother; I'm just a voice on the internet that you took the time to read. So, whether you read this to learn, or if you aren't an English major like me, and you just want to read a couple of cool quotes for your next Instagram caption, then don't worry--I've got you.
On Living
"It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life so interesting." - "The Alchemist," Paulo Coehlo
“Destiny is usually just around the corner. Like a thief, a hooker, or a lottery vendor: its three most common personifications. But what destiny does not do is home visits. You have to go for it.” - "The Shadow of the Wind," Carlos Ruiz Zafon
"What is the meaning of life? That was all- a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years, the great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one.” - "To The Lighthouse," Virginia Woolf
"There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you." - "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," Maya Angelou
“Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It’s hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It’s round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you’ve got about a hundred years here. There’s only one rule that I know of, babies — ‘God damn it, you’ve got to be kind.” - "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," Kurt Vonnegut
“Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat." - The Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
“What I'm certain I don't want is to find myself someday in a new century, an old bitter woman looking back, wishing that right now I'd had more nerve.” - Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier
“Stuff your eyes with wonder, he said, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” - "Farenheit 451," Ray Bradbury
“...Anything worth dying for ... is certainly worth living for.” - "Catch 22," Joseph Heller
“All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered.” - "The Wind in the Willows," Kenneth Grahame
On Loving
“It doesn't matter who you are or what you look like, so long as somebody loves you." - "The Witches," Roald Dahl
“A love story is not about those who lose their heart but about those who find that sullen inhabitant who, when it is stumbled upon, means the body can fool no one, can fool nothing— not the wisdom of sleep or the habit of social graces. It is a consuming of oneself and the past.” - "The English Patient," Michael Ondaatje
“Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud...” - "Life of Pi," Yann Martel
"Love is the longing for the half of ourselves that we have lost." - "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," Milan Kunder
“To love or have loved, that is enough. Ask nothing further. There is no other pearl to be found in the dark folds of life.” - "Les Miserables," Victor Hugo
On Persevering
“Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean.” - "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley
"I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing." "Moby Dick," Herman Melville
“They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend. Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.” - "The Namesake," Jhumpa Lahiri
“Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” - To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
“Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am aprincess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it.” - "A Little Princess," Frances Hodgson Burnett
"And that’s all we are Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood. Until we—each of us, individually—decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.” - "A Lesson Before Dying," Ernest J. Gaines
"There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights." "Dracula," Bram Stoker
On Pursuing Happiness
“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 sametime, 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." - "On The Road," Jack Kerouac
"We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine." - "A Room With A View," E.M. Forster
"Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot." "Breakfast at Tiffany's," Truman Capote
“It’s much better to do good in a way that no one knows anything about it.” "Anna Karenina," Leo Tolstoy
“He allowed himself to be swayed by his conviction that human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but that life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” - "Love inthe Time of Cholera," Gabriel Garcia Marquez
On Being Honest
"We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride helps; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide our hurts— not to hurt others." - "Middlemarch," George Eliot
"The only lies for which we are truly punished are those we tell ourselves." "In a Free State," V.S. Naipaul
“I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” - "Slouching Towards Bethlehem," Joan Didion
What books have changed your life?
