0008
On things that will always mean everything
I don’t read books for favourite quotes. I feel bad holding a pen and scratching it against the pages of a book. I feel bad even if it is a pencil. I don’t highlight, I don’t write in the margins. I may break spines and water damage things here and there, but, I don’t leave things behind in books. I’m usually never floored by exact statements.
(poetry is different. this isn’t poetry. poetry and music. song lyrics are everywhere. poetry snippets are scattered. i believe these forms were just made for quoting…)
The thing of it is though, when asked for my favourite quote, I always pick this one. I haven’t read the book since the first time I picked it up (And that had to be just a little after it was released in 1999) and I can’t tell you anything else about the book, really (other than at the time, I did love it. It was smart and heartbreaking, all at once). In fact, I should probably read it over again one day, but, that quote. Oh, that quote.
I’ve always felt it defined my entire life.
How do you pick a favourite quote? It mostly seems impossible. I love the opening lines of Neuromancer (“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel”), they feel like home to me and Nicole Blackman’s You are Never Ready is like, a mantra and something I try to live by, but a quote? Something you love each time you read it, something that defines you in some way. Something that fills up the space on your Facebook profile and leaves people understanding you ever so slightly? Is that what a favourite quote is? Right there amongst favourite bands and favourite movies? Do you want to get emotional? In depth? How much is too much to say? Who and what do you really want to be?
I have chosen the same quote for that question for over ten years now. I don’t have a good answer as to why it is my favourite quote. It just is. It made me stop in my tracks and copy it down somewhere when I was just a teenage girl. It made sense at the time and it still does. I’ve never picked out another quote from a book and I doubt I ever will.
Really, I think this says it all.
What about you? Do you have a favourite book quote? Are you a habitual sentence highlighter? Can you recite your favourite books word for word for word?
There are 4 Comments to "0008"
A building has integrity just like a man. And just as seldom.
Alex´s last blog ..You ruined everything
this is good :D
Some of my favorites:
“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music…. And people flock around the poet and say: ‘Sing again soon’ – that is, ‘May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”
— Søren Kierkegaard (Either – Or)
“If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you”
— Henry Rollins (Black Coffee Blues <– Fairly sure this was the book)
"I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because 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 same time, 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 and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'" – Jack Kerouac (On The Road <– apparently this is a cliche quote to fall in love with)
I wasn't the type of person to highlight, underline or write in books until I started college. Making notes in books of essays because highlighting pertinent information in bright yellow was the only way that I would remember where to look. Eventually that habit transferred to my casual reading as well. The habit comes and goes over the years. Currently I only highlight in books of the nonfiction or business variety. For books I'm reviewing I write quotes on scratch paper or in notebooks with notes on important book information that I will forget after finishing the book.
The way I find my favorite quotes is that they either jump off the page of the book and slap me across the face or I find ones while looking through quote collection websites online. The quotes themselves have the same effect on me either way.
Zellain´s last blog ..Now in UK Theaters- Splice
That Rollins one is amazing!! Thanks so much for sharing :D