Books on the Wall posts featuring “Words Wednesday” book quote graphics. New graphics added every week, so be sure to check back often!
This quote comes from The Tempest. Written and published in the early 1600s, The Tempest follows the powerful sorceror, Prospero, and his daughter Miranda, who have been exiled to a faraway island by Prospero’s brother, Antonio. Prospero summons the titular tempest at the beginning of the play to bring his traitorous brother and conspirators to the island. Interested in what happens next? Read the full play of The Tempest here.
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Published in 1998, The Poisonwood Bible follows the lives of the Price family, missionaries who move from the state of Georgia to the Belgian Congo in 1959. Throughout the novel, The Poisonwood Bible delves into the lives and minds of each member of the Price family as they build their lives in Africa. The novel ultimately explores themes of religion, guilt, humanity and the tragic consequences of colonialism. Barbara Kingsolver’s novel was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1999.
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This quote comes from Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth. Published in 2000, White Teeth follows the London lives of two friends: Samad Iqbal, originally from Bangladesh, and Archie Jones, an Englishman. Like many of Smith’s other works, White Teeth explores themes of personal and societal identity, immigration and homeland, class, and race. Zadie Smith’s sharp sense of humor and multiple narrative viewpoints have earned her several literary prizes, including the Whitbread Book Award and the Guardian First Book Award. Smith also frequently contributes both fiction and non-fiction essays to the New Yorker.
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Published between 1868 and 1869, Little Women follows four sisters—Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March—as they journey together from childhood to womanhood during the U.S. Civil War period. Louisa May Alcott’s novel was an immediate success upon publication, a quality that it has continued to enjoy ever since. Though aimed primarily for young women, Little Women has been embraced by diverse audiences worldwide and has been adapted into several films, TV productions and Broadway shows.
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This quote is one of the most poignant lines in all of William Shakespeare’s works. It comes from Othello’s final tragic monologue, spoken as he realizes that he has murdered his faithful wife, Desdemona, on the basis of uncontrollable jealousy and false information. The full name of William Shakespeare’s play is The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice. Believed to have been published around 1603, Othello remains popular today for its rich characters and themes of love, racism and revenge. Check out the full-text of Othello for free on Project Gutenberg.
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This quote comes from All the Pretty Horses, winner of the U.S. National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. Published in 1992, All the Pretty Horses is the first installation of McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. The novel follows two teenage boys from Texas, John Grady Cole and Lacey Rawlins, who travel south into Mexico to become cowboys. Written in McCarthy’s distinct style of sparse yet sprawling, simple yet profound stream-of-consciousness prose, All the Pretty Horses is at once romantic, humorous, tragic and deeply philosophical. Cormac McCarthy is renowned for other works including The Orchard Keeper, Blood Meridian and The […]
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This quote comes from his most recent work, This is How You Lose Her. The works of Junot Diaz center around young Dominican American men and their families, some of whom have immigrated to the United States and some of whom remain back home on the island. Incorporating Dominican history, English and Spanish slang, ghosts, and nerd-pop culture, Diaz’s works examine universal questions of identity, heritage and love with a uniquely fresh voice.
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Today’s quote comes from Walden, one of Henry David Thoreau’s most famous works. First published in 1854, Walden is a literary reflection on Thoreau’s purposeful time in solitude in the woods near his family home. Walden is often viewed as the seminal work in American transcendentalist philosophy, contemplating themes like solitude, self-reliance and simplicity. To read the whole work, along with Civil Disobedience, check out our full-text Walden poster.
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This quote comes from Donna Tartt’s early work, The Secret History. Published in 1992 when Tartt was only 28 years old, The Secret History follows a close-knit and extremely exclusive group of friends who study classics at an elite liberal arts college in New England. Filled with classical allusions, mystery, melodrama and the occult, The Secret History is a dark, engaging and philosophical work. In 2014, Donna Tartt received the Pulitzer Prize for her bildungsroman-style epic novel The Goldfinch, despite some notable criticism from the upper echelons of the literary world.
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Published in 1925, The Great Gatsby is set in the West Egg, a fictional neighborhood on Long Island. The novel follows narrator Nick Carraway as he becomes entangled in the drama of the West Egg socialites including, above all, the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby. Through grand affairs, intrigue and tragedy, The Great Gatsby explores the opulence, morality, society and decline of both the Roaring Twenties and the American Dream. Though many original reviewers condemned the novel as a decline from earlier works like This Side of Paradise and The Beautiful and the Damned, it is The Great Gatsby that has continued to solidify F. Scott Fitzgerald’s place in […]
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