Big Books of 2026

Jeannette Westlake > Jeannette's Quotes

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  • #1
    John Rogers
    “There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

    [Kung Fu Monkey -- Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”
    ― John Rogers
    tags: atlas-shrugged, ayn-rand, books, children-s-literature, education, fantasy, jrr-tolkien, life-changing, lord-of-the-rings, reading, real-world
    1105 likes

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  • #2
    Jules Verne
    “We are of opinion that instead of letting books grow moldy behind an iron grating, far from the vulgar gaze, it is better to let them wear out by being read.”
    ― Jules Verne, Journey to the Center of the Earth
    tags: books, reading
    2136 likes

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  • #3
    Chaim Potok
    “I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
    ― Chaim Potok, The Chosen
    tags: silence
    2394 likes

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  • #4
    Terry Brooks
    “Hurt leads to bitterness, bitterness to anger. Travel too far that road and the way is lost.”
    ― Terry Brooks, The Elfstones of Shannara
    183 likes

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  • #5
    Terry Brooks
    “Who would you be but who you are?”
    ― Terry Brooks, The Black Unicorn
    tags: empowering, fantasy, individualism
    209 likes

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  • #6
    Terry Brooks
    “We live out our lives as we are meant to live them-with some choice, with some chance, but mostly as a result of the persons we are.”
    ― Terry Brooks, The Druid of Shannara
    tags: inspirational
    119 likes

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  • #7
    Terry Brooks
    “Why pretend to be something you're not? If you have to be someone, be someone no one else is.”
    ― Terry Brooks
    89 likes

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  • #8
    Terry Brooks
    “Nothing is lost that we do not first see as lost. Visions born of fear give birth to our failing.
    Visions born of hope give birth to our success.
    What is possible lives within us, and it only remains for us to discover it.”
    ― Terry Brooks
    tags: kingdom, landover, magic
    46 likes

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  • #9
    Terry Brooks
    “What you write chooses you.”
    ― Terry Brooks
    32 likes

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  • #10
    Terry Brooks
    “When she cried, he would say, "there is nothing wrong with crying. Your feelings tell you who are. They tell what is important. Don't ever be ashamed of them.”
    ― Terry Brooks, Armageddon's Children
    tags: crying, feelings
    63 likes

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  • #11
    Terry Brooks
    “If you are always frightened for yourself you can't act, and then life loses its purpose. You just have to tell yourself that, when you get right down to it, you don't matter all that much.”
    ― Terry Brooks, The Elf Queen of Shannara
    28 likes

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  • #12
    Terry Brooks
    “We must nurture and love, if life is to have any real meaning. But First we must find a way to survive against the things that prevent us from doing so.”
    ― Terry Brooks
    31 likes

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  • #13
    Terry Brooks
    “You spend so much time wondering who you are, don't you think? You flounder about, searching for your identity, when most of the time it is plain as the nose on your face. You struggle with questions of purpose and need, and forget that the answers are found mostly inside yourselves.”
    ― Terry Brooks, The Tangle Box
    tags: edgewood-dirk
    19 likes

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  • #14
    Terry Brooks
    “The future is an ever-shifting maze of possibilities until it becomes the present. The future I have shown you tonight is not yet fixed. But it is more likely to become so with the passing of every day because nothing is being done to turn it aside. If you would change it, do as I have told you.”
    ― Terry Brooks, The Scions of Shannara
    tags: choices-and-consequences, free-will, prophecy
    16 likes

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  • #15
    Terry Brooks
    “If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.”
    ― Terry Brooks, Sometimes the Magic Works: Lessons from a Writing Life
    39 likes

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  • #16
    Terry Brooks
    “If I have the means, I have the responsibility to employ them.”
    ― Terry Brooks, The Scions of Shannara
    tags: choices-and-consequences, social-responsibility
    33 likes

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  • #17
    Jonathan Stroud
    “According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking.”
    ― Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate
    tags: amulet-of-samarkand, bartimaeus-trilogy, jonathan-stroud
    466 likes

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  • #18
    Marcus Tullius Cicero
    “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
    ― Marcus Tullius Cicero
    tags: attributed-no-source, books, simile, soul
    135576 likes

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  • #19
    William Shakespeare
    “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
    ― William Shakespeare, As You Like It
    tags: wisdom
    45316 likes

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  • #20
    Random House
    “A library is a hospital for the mind.”
    ― Random House
    22 likes

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  • #21
    Richard Paul Evans
    “Books are the most tolerant of friends.”
    ― Richard Paul Evans, The Gift
    tags: books
    138 likes

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  • #22
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
    ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
    tags: accomplishment, attributed-no-source, be-yourself, conformity, individuality
    69722 likes

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  • #23
    Ralph Waldo Emerson
    “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
    ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
    tags: helping-others, make-a-difference, purpose, purpose-of-life
    4241 likes

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  • #24
    Walter M. Miller Jr.
    “You don’t have a soul, Doctor. You are a soul. You have a body, temporarily.”
    ― Walter M. Miller Jr., A Canticle for Leibowitz
    tags: body-soul, misattributed-to-c-s-lewis
    21118 likes

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  • #25
    John Scalzi
    “If you want me to treat your ideas with more respect, get some better ideas.”
    ― John Scalzi, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded
    218 likes

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  • #26
    C.S. Lewis
    “You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
    ― C.S. Lewis
    tags: books, inspirational, reading, tea
    27869 likes

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  • #27
    Terry Pratchett
    “The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”
    ― Terry Pratchett, Diggers
    tags: humor, open-mind, thinking
    21429 likes

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  • #28
    Andre Jute
    “Good novels are not written, they are rewritten. Great novels are diamonds mined from layered rewrites.”
    ― Andre Jute
    8 likes

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  • #29
    Isaac Asimov
    “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”
    ― Isaac Asimov
    tags: democracy, elite, elitism, elitist, voter, voting
    2713 likes

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  • #30
    Edith Hamilton
    “It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought—that is to be educated."

    [Saturday Evening Post, September 27, 1958]”
    ― Edith Hamilton
    tags: education
    147 likes



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Tags From Jeannette’s Quotes

atlas-shrugged
ayn-rand
books
children-s-literature
education
fantasy
jrr-tolkien
life-changing
lord-of-the-rings
reading
real-world
silence
empowering
individualism
inspirational
kingdom
landover
magic
crying
feelings
edgewood-dirk
choices-and-consequences
free-will
prophecy
social-responsibility
amulet-of-samarkand
bartimaeus-trilogy
jonathan-stroud
attributed-no-source
simile
soul
wisdom
accomplishment
be-yourself
conformity
individuality
helping-others
make-a-difference
purpose
purpose-of-life
body-soul
misattributed-to-c-s-lewis
tea
humor
open-mind
thinking
democracy
elite
elitism
elitist
voter
voting