Top Ten Tuesday: Favourite book quotes

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. This week’s theme is:

March 6: Favorite Book Quotes

There are so many books that I’ve put post-it notes inside to mark quotes I love (probably enough to turn this into a top 50 to be honest), but I’ll just stick to ten that I really love. Each of these quotes is about a different subject or issue – feminism, adventures, dreams, friendship and more – and yet each one resonated in me with the same level of intensity when I read it.

“The problem with gender is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are. Imagine how much happier we would be, how much freer to be our true individual selves, if we didn’t have the weight of gender expectations.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, We Should All Be Feminists

“I’d rather die on an adventure than live standing still.”
― Victoria Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic

“It said girls are a revolutionary soul force that can change the world for real.”
― Jennifer Mathieu, Moxie

“He’d been thinking about the quality of sunshine, that is, how daylight wipes away the stars and the planets, making them invisible to human eyes. If one needed the darkness in order to see the heavens, might daylight be a form of blindness? Could it be that sound was also a form of deafness? If so, what was silence?”
― Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing

“Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” 
― Terry Pratchett, A Hat Full of Sky

“A dream dirty and bruised is better than no dream at all.”
― Laini Taylor, Days of Blood and Starlight

“He tasted like regret in the shadows of trees and in the glow of the anarchist’s suit collection. She kissed him long and soft, and when she pulled herself away, she touched his mouth with her fingers…She did not say goodbye. She was incapable, and after a few more minutes at his side, she was able to tear herself from the ground. It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces and they stagger on…”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“You may tell a tale that takes up residence in someone’s soul, becomes their blood and self and purpose. That tale will move them and drive them and who knows that they might do because of it, because of your words. That is your role, your gift.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus

“We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over.”
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451

“We are travelers on a cosmic journey, stardust, swirling and dancing in the eddies and whirlpools of infinity. Life is eternal. We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share. This is a precious moment. It is a little parenthesis in eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Perhaps some of these quotes you’re familiar with, or perhaps not; either way I hope you feel something when reading them and understand why they struck such a cord with me.

Do you have any book quotes that are special to you? Also, bonus points if you can guess which one of these made me cry?