Linda > Linda's Quotes

“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

“If you can sit in silence with a person for half an hour and yet be entirely comfortable, you and that person can be friends. If you cannot, friends you'll never be and you need not waste time in trying.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

“Since ever the world was spinning
And till the world shall end
You've your man in the beginning
Or you have him in the end,
But to have him from start to finish
And neither nor borrow nor lend
Is what all of the girls are wanting
And none of the gods can send”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

“Who would endure life if it were not for the hope of death?”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

“It never rains but it pours”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

“There is no such thing as freedom on earth," he said. "Only different kinds of bondages. And comparative bondages. YOU think you are free now because you've escaped from a peculiarly unbreakable kind of bondage. But are you? You love me - THAT'S a bondage.”
― L.M. Montgomery, The Blue Castle

“Steal not this book for fear of shame

For on it is the owners name

And when you die the Lord will say

Where is the book you stole away

And when you say you do not know

The Lord will say go down below.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily of New Moon

“A place that proves if you get enough talented people in a room, one or two are bound to offer some helpful advice. Kind if like monkeys with typewriters.”
― A. Lee Martinez

“Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“It was not, of course, a proper thing to do. But then I have never pretended, nor will ever pretend, that Emily was a proper child. Books are not written about proper children. They would be so dull nobody would read them.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“My pen shall heal, not hurt.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.
Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.
Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.
Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

“You're a prefect? Oh Ronnie! That's everyone in the family!"
"What are Fred and I? Next door neighbors?”
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

“Don't touch any of my weapons without my permission."
"Well, there goes my plan for selling them all on eBay," Clary muttered.
"Selling them on what?"
Clary smiled blandly at him. "A mythical place of great magical power.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

“Do you love him?"
Deryn swallowed, then pointed at the screen. "He makes me feel like that. Like flying.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Goliath

“Don't try to write anything you can't feel - it will be a failure - 'echoes nothing worth”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“No one can be free who has a thousand ancestors.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“Houses are like people - some you like and some you don't like - and once in a while there is one you love.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“Some people who are obsessed with food become gourmet chefs. Others become eating disorders.”
― Marya Hornbacher, Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

“I've a pocket full of dreams to sell," said Teddy, whimsically,... "What d'ye lack? What d'ye lack? A dream of success--a dream of adventure--a dream of the sea--a dream of the woodland--any kind of a dream you want at reasonable prices, including one or two unique little nightmares. What will you give me for a dream?”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“I know you're a fool, Jim Hardy, but for heaven's sake pretend you're not for five minutes.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“I don't know which is worse - to have somebody you DON'T like ask you to marry him or NOT have some one you DO like. Both are rather unpleasant.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily Climbs

“If the bards of old the true has told
The sirens have raven hair.
But over the earth since art had birth,
They paint the angels fair.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

“Never be silent with persons you love and distrust," Mr. Carpenter had said once. "Silence betrays.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

“It's dreadful what little things lead people to misunderstand each other.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

“Barking spiders!”
― Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan

“The man was allergic to sleep.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan

“Barking hard work, being a boy.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan

“Most men's awareness doesn't extend past their dinner plates.”
― Scott Westerfeld, Leviathan

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”
― Erin Morgenstern, The Night Circus