QUOTES WORTH SHARING

[rapa]

Here is a beloved quote from The History Boys  from the movie adaptation of Alan Bennett‘s 2004 play. This inspiring quote has been viewed nearly 400,000 times online:

"The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours."

This happens to me often.  How about you?

[Ursula]

Love this quote!  Although the quote is new to me, the sentiment is so familiar...one of the reasons, I love to read....that feeling of not being alone, or so different from others.  Thanks for sharing this.

[Apposite]

... that feeling of not being alone, or so different from others. --- Yes, well stated!

[Apposite]

I have always felt the same way. I saw this quote somewhere else and was as struck by it as you were.

[Mandy Muffin]

This is a beautiful and often true result of the joy of reading. I have often felt that I was a participant in the story, as I had been there once in my life.  But I might add that sometimes we come across writing that makes us uncomfortable and disturbs our value set.  Yet, the curious reader delves into the story to learn some new reality that will enhance the knowledge that the world is made up of good and evil, or differing behaviors of human existence.  My approach is that if somebody wrote it, I will read it. I guess this is true, as I read "A Million Little Pieces" after Oprah debunked it.

[Carci]

And another...  from the cover of Louise Penney's latest part of a lyric by Leonard Cohen:

"Ring the bells that still can ring,

Forget your perfect offering,

There is a crack in everything,

That's how the light gets in."

[Ursula]

Loved the book and the quote!  Like a gift from the author when they share the source of their title.

[Joanne]

Oh, yesss!   This happens to me quite often.  Something in the book touches me, grabs me, slaps me upside the head, or simply awakens a tiny spot in my heart or mind.  Or just a poetic sentence that seems to be the essence of good writing, or a feeling you had but couldn't put into words!  

Did anyone see "Face the Nation" this morning?  Schieffer had four authors on:  Michael Connelly, Terry Pratchett, Rick Atkinson and other man, whose name simply escapes me.  The talked about books they had read, books that had something that touched or enlightened them.  The difference between real books, and electronic books.  If you can access it on line, I recommend it.  A great ten or twelve minutes!

[officerripley]

"...the people in charge don't have a great track record for solving problems.  Most people are B and C students.  There are a few brainiacs...but they're generally not the ones in charge.  Think high school.  The jocks ran the show.  Same thing now.  Get a bunch of people together to solve a problem and it's not the smartest guy who does the talking.  It's the loudest."

--from This Plague of Days - Season One by Robert Chazz Chute (couldn't finish the book, one of those postapocalyptic, zombie things but I really liked this passage)

[tnbopeep]

Great quotes all! I hadn't heard many of them. I get teased (affectionately so) about some of my books. Lots of books I read strictly for entertainment & enjoyment (J D Robb's "In Death" series as example). Others I read for the same reason but also the moving writing style (Louise Penny as example). Those books are simply bristling with colored sticky tabs marking a sentence or a passage that just struck me. I loan those books with the caution not to lose any. One of my buddies says her grandson even recognizes when a books comes from Miss Nancy. Sometimes when I'm between books I'll just grab a tabbed book & read those marked pages. Ah, good times......

Much as I enjoy my Nook, I can't do my colored sticky tabs on there. I can highlight passages but it's not the same!

[officerripley]

I've been saving quotes on my computers, plus an external hard drive.  But I do have tags sticking out of my regular books too ;-)

[Slopok]

It does happen. I remember a line from a Dean Koontz book: (I forgot which book) "Death placed it's coma and then she was gone." In my own philosophical thinking,

death is but a coma in our eternal story. It was satisfying to see similar thinking .

[Ursula]

Not a Dean Koontz fan, but I like and agree with this quote.  Thanks for sharing.