Ashleigh Green > Ashleigh's Quotes

“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

“′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

“Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
― Ernest Hemingway

“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Where is human nature so weak as in the bookstore?”
― Henry Ward Beecherr

“THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL

1. We are here to help you.
2. You will have time to get to your class before the bell rings.
3. The dress code will be enforced.
4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.
5. Our football team will win the championship this year.
6. We expect more of you here.
7. Guidance counselors are always available to listen.
8. Your schedule was created with you in mind.
9. Your locker combination is private.
10. These will be the years you look back on fondly.

TEN MORE LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL

1. You will use algebra in your adult lives.
2. Driving to school is a privilege that can be taken away.
3. Students must stay on campus during lunch.
4. The new text books will arrive any day now.
5. Colleges care more about you than your SAT scores.
6. We are enforcing the dress code.
7. We will figure out how to turn off the heat soon.
8. Our bus drivers are highly trained professionals.
9. There is nothing wrong with summer school.
10. We want to hear what you have to say.”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“If there's a book that you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.”
― Toni Morrison

“You get a little moody sometimes but I think that's because you like to read. People that like to read are always a little fucked up.”
― Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides

“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

“There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”
― Groucho Marx

“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain

“When things go wrong, don't go with them.”
― Elvis Presley

“You're going to come across people in your life who will say all the right words at all the right times. But in the end, it's always their actions you should judge them by. It's actions, not words, that matter.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Rescue

“There comes a time when the world gets quiet and the only thing left is your own heart. So you'd better learn the sound of it. Otherwise you'll never understand what it's saying.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“Don't think or judge, just listen.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“I am coming to terms with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith, and that a soft landing is never guaranteed.”
― Sarah Dessen, This Lullaby

“I like flaws. I think they make things interesting.”
― Sarah Dessen, The Truth About Forever

“You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.”
― Sarah Dessen

“Well, I’m not kissing the mundane," said Jace. "I’d rather stay down here and rot."
"Forever?" said Simon. "Forever’s an awfully long time."
Jace raised his eyebrows. "I knew it," he said. "You want to kiss me, don’t you?”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness.”
― Lemony Snicket

“Make it a rule never to give a child a book you would not read yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Here’s to books, the cheapest vacation you can buy.”
― Charlaine Harris

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
― Cicero

“You should date a girl who reads.
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes, who has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag. She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she has found the book she wants. You see that weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a secondhand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow and worn.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas, for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry and in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who read understand that all things must come to end, but that you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes.”
― Rosemarie Urquico

“They didn’t agree on much. In fact, they didn’t agree on anything. They fought all the time and challenged each other ever day. But despite their differences, they had one important thing in common. They were crazy about each other.”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

“It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.”
― Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay

“Is standing by the window muttering about blood something he does all the time?" asked Simon.
"No," Jace said. "Sometimes he sits on the couch and does it.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

“All endings are also beginnings. We just don't know it at the time.”
― Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven