Alexis' Top Ten Favorite Book Quotes

Hey there! This is Alexis and this is Top Ten Tuesday 2.0. This week, we're supposed to share our ten favorite book quotes. Since my co-blogger Claudia already shared her list, here's mine:

1. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. 

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning ——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

2. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton 

In reality they all lived in a kind of hieroglyphic world, where the real thing was never said or done or even thought, but only represented by a set of arbitrary signs.

3. The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I waked,I cried to dream again.

4. A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams 

What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.

5. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath 

Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.

6. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 

I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.

7. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment.

8. Life of Pi by Yann Martel 

Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud...

9.  Angels in America by Tony Kushner 

Don't be afraid; people are so afraid; don't be afraid to live in the raw wind, naked, alone...Learn at least this: What you are capable of. Let nothing stand in your way.

10. The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri

Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination.