When I was a little girl I was incredibly obsessive about keeping all my books in pristine condition. It was seriously out of control.. One time I ordered a book (the novelization of my all-time favorite made-for-TV-movie  “The 10th Kingdom”.. I know so lame, but I was like 12 years old) and when it arrived in the mail the spine was creased, and there was a dent on the cover. This would absolutely NOT do. I kid you not.. I was so insane that I forced my Mom to fill out an actual paper form (online book ordering was not a “thing” back in these days) and mail it back, demanding a new copy. They then sent another copy, and it was dented as well. I wish I could say I kept this one and just got over it.. but yeah.. I forced my poor Mom to send that one back as well. Anyway, I now own 3 copies of this book. My point is, all my books were goddamn perfect book-store quality new.. I would usually buy two copies of a book I enjoyed.. one for the shelf and one for reading.

So yeah 16 years later, I’m completely over this issue. I always have a book on me, everywhere I go. Usually it’s shoved in my purse, or under my arm. I take baths with books, I read while I’m eating, I drop ice-cream on the pages.. and most of my books are covered in sand, from beach reading. So basically just all kinds of behavior my 12 year old self would have had an absolute anxiety meltdown being witness to.

One of my most rebellious book vandalizing acts, is underlining/ hi-lighting every/any quote that stands out to me when I’m reading a new book. Most of my books are dog-eared, and marked almost on every second page. Doing this really helps me with my book reviews, and also is very helpful in remembering and keeping all the best quotes organized in my mind. So over the past few years, I have underlined hundreds and hundreds of quotes, and I’m so glad that I can stomach doing that.. because I now have the best collection to remember all these fantastic books by. Here are some recent favorites.

“You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever. I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago. Dare not say that man forgets sooner than woman, that his love has an earlier death. I have loved none but you.” – Jane Austen, Persuasion

“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”
—J. D. Salinger, “A Girl I Knew”

“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I’m still trying to figure out how that could be.” – Stephen Chbosky, Perks Of Being A Wallflower

“You forget what you want to remember, and you remember what you want to forget.” – Cormac McCarthy, The Road

“And Lot’s wife, of course, was told not to look back where all those people and their homes had been. But she did look back, and I love her for that, because it was so human. So she was turned to a pillar of salt. So it goes. People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

“If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.” – J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

“All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renenwed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.”
—J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring