There is exactly one week left of summer vacation, and I have to tell you, I’m a little glum about it. It’s been an epic summer, really, with great weather and lots of sunshine and water and happiness. And I know that I’ll be happy to get back into routine and I’ll be happy to be able to write more than a few words without hearing prolonged discussions about imaginary characters named “Dim Sum” or “Marmoy” – or worse, be asked to watch a YouTube video made by some guy named Blitzwinger who has apparently attained fame and fortune by making videos of himself playing video games and showing his audience cheat codes. I will, however, be unhappy to give up our lazy mornings, and I’m not exactly looking forward to my usual plethora of volunteer activities. But time marches on, and meanwhile I’ll be enjoying this last week of summer.
Nature walk!
At the top.
Sunshine.
We even saw deer, and my dog proved his intelligence by NOT running after them. Way to go, Barkley.
We had been planning this nature walk today, but I was considering just being completely lazy and staying home, for the very valid reason that I’m exhausted today. I am exhausted because of television. Yes. I considered not taking the kids and dog for a walk because I was too tired due to the television show I’ve been watching, just in case you wanted to feel better about your own life decisions.
The thing is, I’ve been watching a miniseries called Sensitive Skin, and I watched the final episode of the season last night. In case you don’t know, the show is about a fiftyish woman having a midlife crisis, and the episode I watched yesterday was so very sad. It was so sad I kept thinking about it, and couldn’t sleep, and then I started thinking about The Good Wife. I know, you’ve been watching The Good Wife for years, but I just started and I’m finding the whole backstory concept to be devastating. She had a perfect marriage and life and house and the whole time her husband was a horrible cheating bastard. So I lay awake last night, my mind flitting between the two shows, wondering why I don’t just stick with watching Downton Abbey and NYPD Blue DVD’s. Watching Sipowitz bust a perp by rolling down the blinds and threatening to beat him to death is much less disturbing, apparently.
My cousin posted a fun game on Facebook, wherein you post your favourite line from a book. Because I am a huge nerd, I immediately ran downstairs to my bookshelves and grabbed an armful of titles. Then I realized that I would completely hijack her account with my ramblings, so why not blog it? Is that not what a blog is for, like a really long Facebook status?
Here’s the thing: I don’t want to be left hanging. I’m going to expose myself to you via favourite quotes, and I hope you can leave your favourite quote(s) in the comments. Let’s make a game of it; I’ll do a random draw…next week? Winner gets a random prize! Prize to be determined, contest closes September 5. It’ll be fun!
Favourite Line Ever: I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn’t much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra. (To Kill a Mockingbird)
Favourite Line About Career Aspirations: Move about after dinner, and meet acquaintance whose name I have forgotten, but connect with literature. I ask if he has published anything lately. He says that his work is not, and never can be, for publication. Thought passes through my mind to the effect that this attitude might with advantage be adopted by many others. (Diary of a Provincial Lady)
Favourite Romantic Line: “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings must not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” (Pride and Prejudice)
Favourite Old-Timey Romantic Line: Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks about how it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyway, if it meant eating it with her. (Five People You Meet In Heaven)
Favourite Line About Motherhood That Goes With My Landslide-y Mood: I had to sleep close beside them at night and sit with them climbing around me in the daytime; my body felt bruised by their knees and elbows and feet. I did think then that it would be lovely to be a woman traveling alone, able to sit after a meal drinking coffee and looking out the window, able to go to the club car and have a drink…now all that time of care and confusion that seemed as if it would never end seems as if it never was. (The Spanish Lady)
SOB.
Your turn: is there a line from a book that affects you so that you close the book and stare at the wall?
I love this post.
I will have to get back to you re: quotes b/c my mind is a big blank.
This is our last week of summer and I am trying very hard to actually enjoy it with the kids, because, as they say, the days are long and the years are short.
I am going to confine myself to children’s books and mostly to final (or almost final) lines, just so I don’t go on forever.
No one was with her when she died. (Charlotte’s Web)
They could not be forgotten, she thought, because now is now. It can never be a long time ago. (Little House in the Big Woods)
Sometimes you have to lie (Harriet the Spy)
There are some words, of course, that are better left unsaid, but not, I believe, the word uttered by my niece, a word which here means the story is over. Beatrice. (The End, the last book in the Series of Unfortunate Events. It only really makes sense in context but it slays me every time.)
Oh! I like this game too… I’ll have to post two quotes. “Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing.” (Harper Lee~To Kill a Mockingbird) “The only ones 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.” (Jack Kerouac~On the Road)
I am at the office and, therefore, away from my books. However, the one line from a book I love and remember without needing the book around is from A Dance with Dragons “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” Will have to go home and look at books for more!
“I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” Haha. This is from Fellowship of the Ring of course.
I see Allison hasn’t replied yet. She should really win just because she’ll write a MILLION quotes!
“It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live.” (Harry Potter and the Philosopher Stone)
Hm…this post has made me kind of sad in that I couldn’t think of a single one. I even got out a couple of my most favourite books and flipped through them, but realized I’d basically have to re-read them to find the exact lines I loved and have now forgotten.
It’s funny, because I can rhyme off movie quotes like my mind is made up of movie scripts, and song lyrics would lead to dozens of options, too. I’ve decided this means that it’s time to re-read some classics. I actually have a firm rule that I only keep books that I love enough to re-read, or at least want to recommend and lend out. So time to put my money where my bookshelf is, and get re reading!
From the fault in our stars: “you are so busy being you that you have no idea how utterly unprecedented you are.”
I know there are many others. . . perhaps when school starts next week I will have time to re-read some of my favorite books.