Sunlight. Beaches. Ice cream nights. Lana del Rey with the windows down. No responsibilities. Long, lazy days of warmth and freedom and the memories that accompany it. Watching movies on the couch with a huge blanket and the window open. Even though I haven't really existed on this Earth for a long time, some of my favorite moments in life have occurred in that little infinity between June and August. Summer has had sentimental value for all of us in our youth, and these iconic authors have managed to immortalize that feeling forever in the form of literature.
1. “And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby"
2. “I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, "Sonnet XXVII"
3. “I almost wish we were butterflies and liv'd but three summer days--three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
― John Keats, "Bright Star: Love Letter and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne"
4. “What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness?”
― John Steinbeck, "Travels with Charley: In Search of America"
5. "She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
'Winter is dead.'"
― A.A. Milne, "When We Were Very Young"
6. “Summer will end soon enough, and childhood as well.”
― George R.R. Martin, "A Game of Thrones"
7. “In the long dusks of summer we walked the suburban streets through scents of maple and cut grass, waiting for something to happen.”
―Steven Millhauser, "Dangerous Laughter"
8. “Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me. Summer was supposed to be about freedom and youth and no school and possibilities and adventure and exploration. Summer was a book of hope. That’s why I loved and hated summers. Because they made me want to believe.”
―Benjamin Alire Sáenz, "Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe"
9. “Hot weather opens the skull of a city, exposing its white brain, and its heart of nerves, which sizzle like the wires inside a lightbulb. And there exudes a sour extra-human smell that makes the very stone seem flesh-alive, webbed and pulsing.”
―Truman Capote, "Summer Crossing"
10. “August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
―Sylvia Plath, "The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath"
11. “The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last forever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.”
―E.B. White, "Charlotte's Web"
So, school's out for summer. Freedom is finally ours, and the all-too-familiar beloved season will write new memories in the sand. Maybe you're about to go on a trip to that place you always wanted to go to, to see the mountains of Yosemite or the clearest oceans you've ever seen. Or just an epic journey from your couch to your refrigerator; that's good too. Maybe you're excited to start that awesome internship that you worked so hard to get. Maybe you're determined to finally complete that movie marathon with your best friend. Or maybe you're just excited to finally get ten hours of sleep and wake not to an alarm but to the birds outside. Whatever your adventure, make it a summer you'll look back on fondly. Just like you always have.
