My Library helpers and their colleagues have revealed their favorite lines from books and poems:
“Shortcuts make long delays” – Bilbo Baggins, Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien
“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.” – The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger, Stephen King
“Hazel followed; and together they slipped away, running easily down through the wood, where the first primroses were beginning to bloom.” -Watership Down, Richard Adams
“And Winter slumbering in the open air, Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“Isn’t it pretty to think so.” – The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway
“Hold fast to dreams For if dreams die Life is a broken-winged bird That cannot fly.” – Dreams, Langston Hughes
“What is that feeling when you’re driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? – it’s the too-huge world vaulting us, and it’s good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.” – On the Road, Jack Kerouac
“And so, unlike most commanders, whose position is weakened by failure, Vercingetorix gained reputation with every day that followed the reverse.” – Conquest of Gaul, Julius Caesar
“Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.” – Mother to Son, Lanston Hughes
“To harbor spiteful feelings against ordinary people for not being heroes is possible only for a narrow-minded or embittered man.” – A Boring Story, Anton Chekhov
“I will keep Oliver’s red dinner bowl on my shelf. It has been in my hands many times. I know its weight, and I know its depth.” – The Power of the Powerless, Christopher de Vinck
“He turned out the light and went into Jem’s room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.” – To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
“Yet it is not in our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after us may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” – The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
“It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing and it was going to snow.” – Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, Wallace Stevens
“`My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,’ said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, `Why, they’re only a pack of cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!’” – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
“For whatever we lose (like a you or a me), It’s always our self we find in the sea.” 100 Selected Poems, e. e. Cummings
“The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from off the goose” – Old English Folk Poem circa 17th Century
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” – Ozymandias, Percy Bysshe Shelley
“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”― I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou,
“Then, you must do this: help the next person find their way through the dark.” – For Calling The Spirit Back From Wandering The Earth In Its Human Feet, Joy Harjo
“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” ― Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
“I will slip you any privilege I grasp / I am your aunty for life / Here are clean sheets, / and my spare key” – The Aunty Poem (Mi Privilege Es Su Privilege), Mohja Kahf