I learned to write as most writers have: by reading great books – children’s books, adult books, fiction, nonfiction…great writing is everywhere. Hearing moving, poignant, humorous, striking language in your mind as you read is like having a personal writing tutor. When I was young, I used to copy my favorite fairy tales, word by word out of books. I don’t know why I instinctively did that. I suppose I might have been pretending that I had conceived the words I was copying. My first step at being a real author.
Small wonder then that when my daughter-in-law sent me a link to “51 of the Most Beautiful Sentences in Literature” I clicked on it right away and read through every one. The quotes took me back to some the most treasured books in my reading history.
Check it out and see how many you remember…and what additions you would make!
These Were Buzzfeed’s Top 10 Quotes…
1. “At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.”
—Willa Cather, My Antonia
2. “In our village, folks say God crumbles up the old moon into stars.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
3. “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”
4. “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart; I am, I am, I am.”
—Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
5. “”Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
6. “Beauty is an enormous, unmerited gift given randomly, stupidly.”
—Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed
7. “Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.”
—Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
8. “What are men to rocks and mountains?”
—Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
9. “He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
10. “‘Dear God,’ she prayed, ‘let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.’”
—Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
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Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge, Author
Biography | View
- Just Fine They Way They Are (Calkins Creek, March 1, 2011)
- The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton (Clarion Books, 2010)
- Thank You Very Much, Captain Ericsson! (Holiday House, 2005; Berndtsdotter Books, 2012)
- When Esther Morris Headed West (Holiday House, 2001)
- The Legend of Strap Buckner (Holiday House, 2001)
- Wicked Jack (Holiday House, 1995)
Speaker / Presenter
Connie is an experienced speaker and presenter who enjoys sharing her passion for writing and her experience as a writer with readers and writers of all ages. She has presented to students, community, civic and professional organizations, writing groups, library audiences, and seniors – wherever book lovers gather!
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