I love a good sentence! Either specifically clear or beautifully poetic, I collect them in my notebook or underline them in books. Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.
“I worked so hard for so many years to make my life into something, that it was a surprise to see all the truly valuable pieces fall from the sky undeserved.” —Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
“I began to view the church, like family, as a dysfunctional cluster of needy people. Life is difficult and we see ways to cope… We need each other in order to withstand the assaults of life.” —Where the Light Fell by Philip Yancey
“If I push or back off just a tiny bit, I find that magical place between ease and strain called steadiness.’ — Soulful Simplicity by Courtney Carver
“And if I live? I suppose I shall go shopping.” — The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning by Margareta Magnusson
The author describes herself as being between 80 and 100 years old, and I loved her humor. This is the ending line of a book that tried to convince readers to not go shopping or collect a lot of stuff!
“August is exquisite agony. I want each day to last forever. I am fretful, fevered, and perpetually irritated by everyone but Walton, to whom I am determined to show my best self. It’s a peculiar kind of dissatisfaction, a bittersweet nostalgia for a moment not yet past. Even in the midst of a pleasurable outing, I am aware of the ephemeral it is. The water is warm, but will cool. The ocean is a sheet of glass, but wind is picking up far across the horizon. The bonfire is roaring, but will dwindle. Walton is beside me, his arm around my shoulder, but soon he will be gone.” —A Piece of the World by Christina Baker Kline
This book was full of poetic prose.
“Fair is whatever God does.” — Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
During the whole book, the characters are trying to figure out what is the right thing to do. This was the main characters conclusion toward the end.
“Principles are not for times when there are no temptations. They are for such moments as this when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor. If at my individual I might break them, what would be their worth? Forgone determinations are all I have at this hour to stand by. There I plant my foot.” — Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
“All she’d ever wanted was a quiet, dignified life. She thought she might finally achieve that here.” — Emily, Alone by Stewart O’Nan
Emily was standing in the cemetery when she had these thoughts.
“Cade didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to believe Gus has been transformed by the same Holy Spirit that had changed his own life.” — Cape Refuge by Terri Blackstock
Terri Blackstock is considered a Christian author. I’ve only read two of her books and both seemed to have the Christian part sort of tacked on, in my opinion. But this line really made me think. Cade is a cop and Gus is a Jamaican suspect to whom he feels superior.
“Clarissa was, in my Kansas grandmother’s way of saying, well-preserved.” —Of Books and Bagpipes by Paige Shelton
This is a random, mediocre mystery story, but this line was such a surprise. My dad grew up in Kansas and I had heard him describe people as ‘well-preserved’. I thought it was his own expression but maybe he heard it from the locals when he was young.
“I think he gave up the idea that there is a better place somewhere else. There is no “better place” than this, not in this world. And it is by the place we’ve got and our love for it and our keeping of it, that this world is joined to heaven.” — Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry
“And then the nights came on and the frosts took hold again and blades of cold slid under doors and cut the knees of those who still knelt to say the rosary.” —Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
“It was as much of a gift to receive as it was to give, requiring as it did both courage and humility.” — The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
I liked this line as it was a revelation to the character and to me simultaneously. This is a story about a 60 year-old man, his nagging wife, his son’s suicide, being unwanted as a child, yet I couldn’t put it down. Great writing!
“Me! Cried Emma, shaking her head. Ah! Poor Harriet! She checked herself, however, and submitted quietly to a little more praise than she deserved.” — Emma by Jane Austin
“I am trying to make something of myself and I’m not always sure how much I’ve got to work with.” — The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
“The gust of welcome nearly parted my hair.” Worksong by Ivan Doig
This line took me as much by surprise as the character’s surprise at being welcomed. It was delightful!
“Everything was as it always was and yet everything was different.” —Longbourne by Jo Baker
I was at the end of the first chapter of this book and thinking that nothing had happened at all and considering if I wanted to keep reading and then there was this line. Longbourne is a retelling of Pride and Prejudice from the maids point of view.
“One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by. — The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
This line sounds carefree, but the book is not. They were living in a house with leaking roof and leaning walls and no running water at the time she was grateful for summer. One meager Christmas her dad took her outside and told her to choose a star for her gift. What this line makes me think is its possible to reframe the direst of situations and see something good in it.
–Liz
Something more:
So She Reads 