literatigeek

Run by The Broke and The Bookish

April 14: Top Ten Inspiring Quotes from Books (anything that inspires you, challenges you, makes you think, encourages you, etc.)

I gave myself some guidelines with this list. No quotes from memoirs because those are designed to be inspiring. And have a reason for picking the quote, not just because it sounds inspirational.

You might notice a pattern with a lot of these quotes. I assure you it wasn't an intentional pattern, there's just a certain theme that inspires me. I have social anxiety/depression. I'm pretty sure I've had this since I was young. I got voted "Biggest crybaby" my senior year of high school because by that point it was common knowledge that I cried a lot. In retrospect, most of these cases were because of anxiety attacks that I wasn't aware I was having. However, by this point in my life I was able to laugh off the fact that my 200 class members thought it was funny I had cried when my teacher refused to let us go to lunch early to watch President Obama's first inauguration (even though I was apart of early lunch and had got a 95% on my test; he said he was holding us back for low test grades). 

But that's just a bit of background context that you really don't need to know if you see that giant paragraph and think "Nah, get to the list."

My current "Wall of quotes", the original in my dorm went to the ceiling and left no space between post-its.

1.) "I will not say do not weep for not all tears are an evil." JRR Tolkien, Return of the King.

2.) "Once you've accepted your flaws, no one can use them against you." George RR Martin, Game of Thrones.

3.) "Laugh as much as you choose but you will not laugh me out of my opinion." Jane Austen, Pride & Prejudice.

4.) "Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

5.) "Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it." JK Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

6.) "At times the world may seem an unfriendly and sinister place, but believe that there is much more good in it than bad..." Lemony Snicket, The End.

7.) "It's a shitty world and shit happens, but we don't have to bathe in shit." Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies.

8.) "It's dangerous business going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." JRR Tolkien, Fellowship of the Ring.

9.) "Stay gold, Ponyboy, stay gold." S.E.Hinton, The Outsiders.

10.) "No one controls your destiny. Even at the very worst - there is always choice." Gregory Maguire, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.