Books on the Wall blog posts featuring books quotes in either graphical or deep dive format.
This F. Scott Fitzgerald quote comes from This Side of Paradise, which came out in 1920 and was the author’s first published novel. This Side of Paradise follows young Amory Blaine, who leaves his home in the Midwest to begin college at Princeton University. The novel received fairly positive reviews when it was first released, but it has never gained the public acclaim of Fitzgerald’s other works (like The Great Gatsby). It was always the becoming he dreamed of, never the being. -F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise Can’t get enough of F. Scott Fitzgerald? Check out our post […]
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This quote comes from Elie Wiesel’s acclaimed novel Night. Published in 1960, Night is based on Wiesel’s experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps from 1944 to 1945. The semi-autobiographical novel (some insist it is fiction) is divided into three parts: Night, Dawn, and Day. Night has become a staple of high school and college reading courses around the world and is part of the canon of fictional and non-fictional works about the Holocaust. Wiesel passed away on July 2, 2016, at his home in New York City. A founding member of the New York Human […]
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This Nicole Krauss quote comes from her second published work, The History of Love. Published in 2005, the novel was a finalist for the Orange Prize in Fiction the following year. Fairly or not, The History of Love tends to be compared to the work of Krauss’s then-husband Jonathan Safran Foer. That work, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, was also Safran’s second novel, and the two works share several main character types and plot points: intelligent-beyond-their-years children without fathers who go on journeys to discover something and along the way stumble into remnants of Jewish heritage and historical and personal tragedies. […]
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This quote comes from a poem by Emily Dickinson. Emily Dickinson was an early American poet who lived in Amherst, Massachusetts. Dickinson’s poems are often short and unnamed, and they typically focus on themes of human mortality and death; in fact, most of her work was published posthumously. One of our favorite Dickinson poem, of course, speaks to the power of books: There is no frigate like a book To take us lands away, Nor any coursers like a page Of prancing poetry. This traverse may the poorest take Without oppress of toll; How frugal is the chariot That bears […]
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Published in 2014, A Brief History of Seven Killings is Marlon James’ third novel and follows the events leading up to and following the assassination attempt on Bob Marley’s life. With incredibly unique characters, multiple Englishes, and a sweeping storyline, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a “post-post-colonial” look at the complexity of Jamaican and American history, society, and pop culture. James is the first and only Jamaican-born author to have won the Man Booker Prize. “If it no go so, it go near so.” -A Jamaican proverb featured in the epigraph of Marlon James’ A Brief History of […]
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This quote comes from James Joyce’s masterpiece, Ulysses. Originally published in serial form over two years (1918 to 1920), Ulysses is widely renowned as the most important example of modernist literature. Written in a challenging stream-of-consciousness style, Ulysses is often ranked as the best English-language novel of all time. “Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.” -James Joyce, Ulysses Did you know? You can read Ulysses for free on Project Gutenberg!
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This quote comes from Virginia Woolf’s autobiographical extended essay, A Room of One’s Own. Originally delivered as a lecture series throughout 1928, A Room of One’s Own is considered one of the earliest and most prominent feminist texts. In this essay, Woolf explores the limitations historically imposed on women seeking to pursue an education and a career in writing. Nearly one hundred years later, many of Woolf’s arguments and questions about the expectations and opportunities for women are still unfortunately and exceedingly relevant. “No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anyone but oneself.” -Virginia Woolf, A […]
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This quote comes from Alexandre Dumas’ beloved classic The Count of Monte Cristo. Published in serialized form from 1844 to 1845, The Count of Monte Cristo is a classic adventure tale of imprisonment, vengeance, and forgiveness. Alexandre Dumas is also widely celebrated for The Three Musketeers. Want more of The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas? Check out our Count of Monte Cristo book poster, a 36″x24″ design that contains up to Chapter 34 of the classic novel.
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This quote appears in the very first few sentences of Lady Chatterly’s Lover, written by DH Lawrence and first published privately in Italy in 1928. The novel was banned in countries like the United Kingdom for many years due to its explicit language and frank depiction of sexuality. “We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.” -DH Lawrence, Lady Chatterly’s Lover
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Winner of the National Book Award in 2001, Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections tells the story of the Lambert family from a fictional Midwestern town called St. Jude. The three adult children left their parents in St. Jude many years before, but now each one faces his or her own brand of personal crisis while their father slowly descends into dementia. Listen to Jonathan Franzen’s interview about The Corrections on NPR. “And when the event, the big change in your life, is simply an insight—isn’t that a strange thing? That absolutely nothing changes except that you see things differently and you’re less fearful […]
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