I should add the disclaimer that for most of these books I have numerous favorite quotes, so to say that the quotes listed are my FAVORITE is probably a bit untrue. But only because I have many favorite parts about all these books.
Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
This book will change your life if you let it. I read it for the first time during my freshman year of college, and suddenly so many things made sense. Lewis has a way of talking about spiritual things that just resonate in my life. I find myself at peace after reading many of the things he says.
My favorite quote: "If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
This is a classic that I definitely did not appreciate the first time I read it at 17 years old. I wasn't one of those girls that was enamored with Mr. Darcy for my entire life. I actually considered it to be a pretty forgettable book after my first time through. It wasn't until I watched The Lizzie Bennett Diaries and the BBC miniseries that I decided I should give it another shot. To my surprise, I fell in love with the story and the characters. Maybe it's the fact that I grew up in a family of all girls, or maybe its the way we were always convinced we were never going to get married, or perhaps the way Lizzie loved books and learning or it could be my fascination with the class system and the way they lived back then. I've read it several times since then and enjoyed it each and every time.
Favorite quote: "I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library."
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
I first read this book during my junior year of high school, as part of a Modern Novels class. I was instantly intrigued by the concept--I love a good dystopian society story, and the fact that books played a major role was extra enticing. There's a nice touch of irony that this is one of the most frequently banned books in the US. It's crazy to me how something written so long ago can ring so true in today's. Almost prophetic, and yet we're not quite at that point yet. But take care... we are not that far away.
Favorite quote: "We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over."
Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
Okay, maybe it's cheating a little to have two books on here by the same author, but Lewis is just that awesome. This is a work of fiction that portrays a series of letters from a senior demon officer to his nephew, about how to succeed in the business of causing humans to sin. I read it for an English class, and then we had to write our own "Screwtape Letter." I poured my heart and soul into that letter.
Favorite quote: "For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity."
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
This was another one that I read for that Modern Novels class (Mrs. T sure knew how to pick great books). The book is told through the eyes of Janie, a southern African-American woman who lived in the early 1900s and is now recounting her story as a woman in her mid-forties. Her story is rife with sexual abuse, violence, and tragedy. This book is raw and powerful and not for the faint of heart.
Favorite quote: "Love is lak de sea. It's uh movin' thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from de shore it meets, and it's different with every shore."
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The only reason I picked this book up at a used book store in the first place (way before they decided to make it into a movie, I might add), was because the main character's name is Liesel. And even though it wasn't the same spelling, I figured that since the word "book" was in the title, it was probably the most perfect book there ever was. I was pretty much right. This is one of the most beautiful, heart-wrenching stories I have ever read. I don't do a lot of crying, but when I was done with this, I had tears in my eyes. It's one of those books that I finished, I closed the cover, and I sat there for a long time just thinking about it.
Favorite quote: "When she came to write her story, she would wonder when the books and the words started to mean not just something but everything."
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
The plot of this novel centers around a futuristic treasure hunt that takes place in a virtual world. Pretty cool, as far as fantasy novels go. This is a book that I was only recently introduced to, but once I started, I couldn't put it down. It's a fascinating look at the human desire to hunt for buried treasure and be the absolute best in the world.
Favorite quote: "I was watching a collection of vintage '80s cereal commercials when I paused to wonder why cereal manufacturers no longer included toy prizes in every box. It was a tragedy, in my opinion. Another sign that civilization was going right down the tubes."
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
This coming-of-age story about a teenager named Holden Caulfield can be difficult to read. He's a complex character, and many people see just enough of themselves in his story that it's almost painful. His narrative is real--real enough to keep this book on the banned list in many schools across the nation.
Favorite quote: "What really knocks me out is a book that, when you're all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. That doesn't happen much, though."
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
This beautiful touching memoir is best summed up in it's tagline: "One woman's search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia." Elizabeth Gilbert leaves her friends, marriage, and home behind, on a year-long quest to find herself. She studies the art of pleasure in Italy, the art of devotion in India, and tries to find the balance between the two on the island of Bali.
Favorite quote: "The Bhagavad Gita--that ancient Indian Yogic text--says that it is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection."
Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom
A poignant memoir about Mitch Albom's interactions with an old college professor, Morrie Schwartz, who is now dying of Lou Gehrig's disease. Mitch visits him in the last few months of his life, and learns "life's greatest lesson": how to truly live.
Favorite quote: "'Everyone knows they're going to die,' he said again, 'but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently.'"
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Where would this list be without some Gaiman fantasy? This is one of my favorite other-wordy adventures, a book about a man named Richard Mayhew who finds himself racing against time in London Below (a world beneath the city of London) with a girl named Door. Fantastical creatures and characters make this a wonderfully macabre fairy tale for adults.
Favorite quote: "Metaphors failed him, then. He had gone beyond the world of metaphor and simile into the place of things that are, and it was changing him."
