Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Book Quotations

Dear Broke and Bookish,

This is your most thought-provoking Top Ten Tuesday yet, in my opinion. I can't wait to read everyone's posts. 

Love, 

The Story Girl

1. "He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James.

"No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader.

-- Middlemarch by George Eliot

Because it is hilarious.

2. "But Philip was impatient with himself; he called to mind his idea of the pattern of life: the unhappiness he had suffered was no more than part of a decoration which was elaborate and beautiful; he told himself strenuously that he must accept with gaiety everything, dreariness and excitement, pleasure and pain, because it added to the richness of the design."

-- Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

Because I want to live my life in the same way.

3. "I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers."

-- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

Because October is my favorite month, and this is such a perfectly beautiful description of it. 

4. "I was horribly bookish, to the point of coming right out and saying it, which I knew was not socially acceptable." 

-- Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Just because. 

5. "In some ways, I think I'll never be over him," Langston said.

"That is such an unsatisfying answer."

"That's because you're interpreting it the wrong way. I don't mean it as a wistful, overdramatic declaration. I meant that the love I felt for him was huge and real, and, while painful, it forever changed me as a person, in the same way that being your brother reflects and changes how I evolve, and vice vera. The important people in our lives leave imprints. They may stay or go in the physical realm, but they are always there in your heart, because they helped form your heart. There's no getting over that."

-- Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Because it is truth.

6. "anachronism, n. 'I'll go get the horse and buggy,' you'll say. And I'll say, 'But I thought we were taking the hovercraft!'"

-- The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

Because every time I read it, I laugh out loud -- literally. 

7. "Each time you happen to me all over again."

-- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Because it squeezes my heart in the best possible way. 

8. "Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you -- especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snap; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly."

-- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Because this is just one of Mr. Rochester's many lovely speeches (probably the best one). 

9. "Because he's Will."

-- The Amber Spyglass by Phillip Pullman

Because Will is my ultimate literary crush, and if you've read this book, you understand the emotion and trust and love behind those three little words. I don't think any one line in any one book has made me cry so much, even if they are negligible on their own. 

10. "A broken heart has more surface area than one that is intact."

-- Salt and Saffron by Kamila Shamsie. 

Because this is a lesson I've learned first hand -- as more surfaces on your heart are exposed, you have a greater capacity to love and feel.