Hopes, dreams and possibilities on the pages

You'd never know it from the quality of writing on this blog, but few things are more fulfilling to me than reading an excellent book. So I really related to a couple of articles or features in last weekend's New York Times. The first one, "Draft," is a feature focusing on the art of writing.

In the first article of the series, "My Life's Sentences," Jumpha Lahiri writes: "We encounter books at different times in life, often appreciating them, apprehending them, in different ways. But their language is constant. The best sentences orient us, like stars in the sky, like landmarks on a trail."


Much like Lahiri does when she finds a sentence that resonates, I too underline or highlight those words and re-read them again and again.

"He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning-fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete."- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby



"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." - Robert Frost

"Maddy" summed up my sentiments perfectly in her comment left below Lahiri's article in the Times, "Great writing yields a joy beyond measure."

What are your favorite quotes from dogeared pages of well-loved books?