Quotation Marks

I love a good quote. At Book Club last Wednesday I was rambling on and on about the book we read (my favorite story, The History of Love by Nicole Krauss... get over it, it's my blog, I can mention it as many times as want!) and I found myself telling everyone that I know I love a book when I find passages that strike me as true. I think that is the thing that makes a writer great. The ability to synthesize truth for the reader.

Anyway, I went a little nutso on goodreads and I started posting a bajillion quotes that I love and I thought... wait, this would be a good topic for a blog post. And thus we have arrived at the crux of my introduction. (Oh, Nikki, I am totally not stealing your blog idea... I am just talking about quotes in general, not the ones that precede a novel to give you an idea of what you are in for. I am not plagiarizing!)

I have a little book that my mom got me a few years ago and it is a book that is meant to keep the titles of books on my wish list. There is also a section for quotes, which I filled up rather quickly. I won't bore you with a ton of them but I am going to list a few of my favorites. If you have some I'd love to hear (er... read) them!

"Words mean more than we mean to express when we use them: so a whole book ought to mean a great deal more than the writer meant." - Lewis Carroll

"GIRL: He was deciding whether to cut her throat or love her forever.
BOY: Right. Yes. The usual choices." - Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

"Even now, all possible feelings do not exist. There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact." - Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

See, only three. I could write quotes all night but I will keep it simple. Do you want to see my favorite opening sentence I have encountered up to this point in my life?

"I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well." - Orhan Pamuk, My Name is Red

I am so happy when authors just start right in the middle of a story. I hate the 100 page build up method. I prefer to start in the center and learn backwards and forwards all at once. It's how I write. Maybe it's how I think. It has certainly been an element in the way I've lived.

Reading is better than just about anything, except writing. And rolling down hills. And, maybe someday, a cute boy with curly hair and glasses, one who is more than just an idea. Maybe.