My next project

I'm going to do it, finally. All these years of reading books and seeing noteworthy lines, my brain has been telling me I should write these down. Yes, it's true I write them down sometimes; but that's really only every 20 books or so. It helps that lately I have taken in some great literature and am therefore urged more strongly to put the plan into action.

So I'll be writing them down here in blogger as a way of also sharing them and dialoguing with you fine folk about some of my favorite lines.

To begin, I'm sending those interested on a hunt. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society has my favorite line on page 211. It begins with a D. But really, people, you have no idea what the lines are trying to convey unless you've read at very least the 10 pages before it as well. Preferably the whole thing. Often in a book, a line can be drawn out of context and you still can take away meaning from it. In this case, I don't think so. But if you've read it or are reading it, I love this line because the anger, frustration, and inability to do anything to change the situation are fully felt there. It's exactly what I would have done, and Juliet's words are my words; the book draws you in that well!

Secondly, I'm reading Rabbit, Run which Jamie, I really think is going to depress me. At least there's good imagery and description. At one point, Updike likens a couple's held hands as they rush to their car to a starfish jumping! But the book feels similarly to Native Son, with Rabbit just having this sense of not fitting in. I still have trouble believing that people therefore feel subconsciously licensed to do idiotic things when they're already in a precarious position. But what can I say, I'm only 40 pages in. The line I like, though, is a moment which stops the book and is one of those times you can take the line out of context safely. In fact I'm certain Updike meant for this to be so. It's page 28 of my first edition, where the elderly gas attendant with some whisky on his breath says, "The only way to get somewhere, you know, is to figure out where you're going before you get there." That line just screams, take me out and put me in your brain! doesn't it? :)