I've been reading On The Road by Jack Karouac for the past few weeks (yes, I said weeks). With all the other things that have been going on this month, finishing this book has kind of fell by the wayside. However, I thought I would post some of my favorite quotes from what I've read so far. Going through them I realized how religious this novel actually is, which I definitely did not expect from the Beat movement's golden boy. Brace yourself, there are a lot (and I still have 2 "parts" left to read):
"I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future."
"Looking at the ceiling and wondering what God had wrought when He made life so sad."
"Troubles, you see, is the generalization-word for what God exists in. The thing is to not get hung-up."
"Love is a duel."
"Everything is fine, God exists, we know time. Everything since the Greeks has been predicted wrong. You can't make it with geometrical systems of thinking. It's all this!"
"Lucille would never understand me because I like too many things and get all confused and hung-up running from one falling star to another till I drop. This is the night, what it does to you. I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion."
"All kinds of unforeseen events wait lurking to surprise you and make you glad you're alive to see."
"God exists without qualms. As we roll along this way, I'm positive beyond doubt that everything will be taken care of for us."
"Only damn fools pay no attention to visions."
yesterday, I read the novel Brave New Girl by Louisa Luna. I enjoyed Luna's writing. It was very easy to read, although some of Doreen's experiences weren't quite as easy to deal with. Doreen's experiences in themselves weren't very relatable for me, but somehow I still found a strong connection with her (hard to put into words, you'd have to be in my head - scary). The strongest connection that I found with Doreen was her love for music and how she described how she felt about it. I would recommend the book to others; however, I'm warning you it can get kind of "dark." Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book: (some of these they took right out of my brain)
"Sometimes when I listen to music, I feel like I could scream. It's like some music's got a direct line to my insides, and when I hear it, I go crazy all over."
"My head gets all jammed up all the time, but when I put music on, I don't have to think about anything. I really love that."
"It seems kind of dumb - all these words to songs I don't like are in my head. I mean, there could be something really good in my head instead. I could have the cure for cancer in there."
- (I swear I have said something almost exactly like this before. I think about this all the time. For example, why can I remember lyrics to songs I haven't heard since I was 8, but I can't remember where I put my phone 2 minutes ago? But anyways...)
"Sometimes you have to do things before you know why you're doing them."
Yesterday I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I've been meaning to read this book for a long time, but as I am very easily distracted, I hadn't gotten around to it. The approach of the movie version compelled me to go ahead and read it before I got distracted again. It was a great story. I won't spoil the plot for anyone who is planning to read it/see the movie. But I will say that the ending... I did not see it coming. And it took me a minute to fully comprehend what discovery had just been made. I literally "gasped out loud" when I put the pieces together. And unlike some people, I believe that this part is the missing piece to making sense of Charlie. The only thing I still want to know is who he was writing the letters to. On a different note, I am really excited for the cast of the movie. I think they picked the perfect actors for the characters. I'm most excited about Emma Watson (love her) playing Sam and Paul Rudd (love him) playing Bill.
And finally, I thought I would share my favorite quotes from the book - it was full of them.
"We accept the love we think we deserve."
"And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."
"I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do, because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person."
"I really think that everyone should have watercolors, magnetic poetry, and a harmonica."
"Things change. And friends leave. And life doesn't stop for anybody."
"I would die for you. But I won't live for you."
"Every person has to live for his or her own life and then make the choice to share it with other people."
"Running after the sun... And everything was as good as it could be."
"So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them."
"...Things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough."
