I am back after a long hiatus!! I went to a friend’s wedding a week ago, and after I felt really dejected about having to leave everyone I got to see there. I also moved home for the summer to help out with my mom’s store. So, it’s been a busy week, and I’m just now getting back into a schedule.

And it’s Tuesday again, wooo! This week’s Top Ten Tuesday (hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl) is a quote freebie. I am really bad at annotating my books when I read, so I only have five. No theme, they’re just quotes that really resonated with me when I read them.

“I said I didn’t think the fear was the problem as much as the struggle. I said I thought the struggle should be to accept death, not to defy it. “Hmmm,” he said. “Imagine a tiger,” he said.”

This one was really relevant to a topic I’m passionate about. So many people in the West try to ignore death. When Hadley brings this topic up to her therapist, the response is to once again ignore it–imagine a tiger instead. Such a bittersweet way of encapsulating this struggle in two lines.

“Like when Spotify plays a song you haven’t heard since childhood, and it reminds you who you are. Like “Oh yeah, I’m a person who knows all the words to Will Smith’s ‘Wild Wild West.”

I am obsessed with this feeling that listening to a song can transport you somewhere else. Williams perfectly summed up this feeling–of being reminded of who you were and how different things were when you knew this song.

“You endure what is unbearable, and you bear it. That is all.”

This quote wrecked me when I first read it. I generally consider myself to be very fortunate in the opportunities I was granted in life, but I’ve struggled a lot existentially still. This quote is exactly how I face those struggles. All things must pass, as George Harrison would say. We just need to bear that which we think we cannot bear.

“It’s as if she understood completely the condition of loneliness and how it undermines us all, forcing us to make choices that we know are wrong for us.”

After I read this, I learned that John Boyne is not a great guy. But, this book was incredible and heartbreaking. This quote is so beautiful and devastating in how true it is. Are we not all just making choices to save ourselves from loneliness? That is how I feel at all times. And if it’s not how you operate, I am truly happy for you.

“Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars, points of light and reason. …And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason, for anything.”

You didn’t think I’d get through a list of favorite book quotes without adding a Twilight book, did you? New Moon is one of the most beautifully written books on grief and depression I have ever read, and I will fight anyone who disagrees. This quote has always been one of my favorites. Incredibly romantic and tormented. No notes. And, fun fact, it is the most liked quote from this book on Goodreads.

I felt a little embarrassed at first only picking quotes that truly resonated with me and not just for the writing or some other characteristic. But, I think we read books to see ourselves mirrored in them, so why shouldn’t I care most about quotes I find myself reflected in?

What is your favorite book quote?

• Instagram
• Goodreads