Top Ten Quotations From the Past Year's Reading

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week's topic is on favorite book quotations. It's been a while since I shared some quotations; here is, yet again, some favorite passages from things I've read in the past year. They all happen to be from nonfiction!

1. "It is a contradiction that white females have structured a women's liberation movement that is racist and excludes many non-white women. However, the existence of that contradiction should not lead any woman to ignore feminist issues. Oftentimes I am asked by black women to explain why I would call myself a feminist and by using that term ally myself with a movement that is racist. I say, 'The question we must ask again and again is how can racist women call themselves feminists.' It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term 'feminism,' to focus on the fact that to be 'feminist' in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression." - Ain't I a Woman by bell hooks
I read this whole passage aloud on my podcast after finishing this book because I think it's an important contribution to the conversation about what it means to be a feminist or who "counts" as a feminist.

2. "This is still one of the black man's big troubles today. So many of those so-called 'upper class' Negroes are so busy trying to impress on the white man that they are 'different from those others' that they can't see they are only helping the white man to keep his low opinion of all Negroes." - The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
I can't speak to the Black experience, but I see parallels here for other marginalized groups as well; for example, women trying to say that they're "not like other women," which ultimately perpetuates rather than battles misogyny in the culture.

3. "Even if the law is enforced equitably and without bias or malice, it still results in the incarceration of large numbers of people who are homeless, mentally ill, and poor, rather than hardened predators. Ultimately, the criminalization of homeless people should be understood as a way of managing growing inequality through increasingly punitive mechanisms of state control." - The End of Policing by Alex S. Vitale
This whole book is great, but I think this is a key point — it is the American system of policing itself that is broken, not just that it's carried out by individuals with bias, and that's why changes to the structures are necessary, not just increased training for police officers.

4. "Challenging behavior occurs when the demands being placed upon a child outstrip the skills he has to respond adaptively to those demands." - The Explosive Child by Ross W. Greene
This is Greene's central thesis, and something I keep trying to remind myself of as we work to figure out the best way to help our son develop coping skills that don't involve violence.

5. "It's a very colonizing impulse to look at something—a land, a city, a culture—and instead of seeing what is there, see a barren landscape that needs your new ideas. It's an American impulse to see a problem and think you can solve it with a little hard work and some bootstraps. It's a deeply human impulse to look all around you and see a problem but never consider that you might be the actual problem." - God Land by Lyz Lenz
I wasn't a huge fan of this book as a whole, but there were a lot of excellent passages throughout, like this one.

6. "Kids do idiotic, obnoxious stuff. That's unlikely to change any time soon, so if your plan for keeping your cool depends on your child's ability to do the same, that's going to end poorly for everyone." - How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t with Your Kids by Dr. Carla Naumburg
This is such an important reminder! The notion that "I wouldn't get so angry if they would just behave" is tied to abusive patterns. It's our job as parents to figure out how to be a steady and calming presence in our kids' lives.

7. "Much of what passes for racial reconciliation feels like an interracial playdate. Whites leave the playground feeling good about their new friend of color, but the material realities of people of color are unchanged." - I Bring the Voices of My People by Dr. Chanequa Walker-Barnes
This book has so much important content, but this is at the heart of her reason for writing it: the racial reconciliation movement in the church has been dominated by men and based on ideas of interpersonal relationships that don't dig into systemic inequities, and that needs to change if true justice is to be served.

8. "While we sit in pews singing songs about personal sins and salvation, we are ill equipped to go into the world to face systems of injustice, many of which we helped create." - Native by Kaitlin Curtice
One of the things I appreciate about the Catholic Church, and particularly the churches I've been part of, is that we focus more on community than individual salvation. I think faith has to be tied to social justice to truly exemplify the call to be Jesus' hands and feet.

9. "If anything, the people who moved to Jonestown should be remembered as noble idealists. They wanted to create a better, more equitable, society. They wanted their kids to be free of violence and racism. They rejected sexist gender roles. They believed in a dream. How terribly they were betrayed." - A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres
This book did an excellent job of showing how so many people ended up taking their own lives against their will. Being dismissive or judgmental doesn't allow you the ability to see how you too could someday become enmeshed in a dangerous situation following an unstable leader.

10. "Being human is not hard because you're doing it wrong, it's hard because you're doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy." - Untamed by Glennon Doyle
This book is chock full of great quotations; here's a particularly good one.

What are some of your favorite book quotations?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Riddle of Ages, God Land, and Whistling Vivaldi
Five years ago I was reading: Number the Stars and The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey
Ten years ago I was reading: Fourth Comings

Opening Lines of Ten Favorite Books

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This week we're talking about opening lines. My bookshelf, as I've mentioned, is culled to just a collection of favorite books, so I didn't have many to reference, but I tried to pull some good opening lines!

1. "John Moses couldn't have chosen a worse day, or a worse way to die, if he'd planned it for a lifetime." - The Homecoming of Samuel Lake by Jenny Wingfield

2. "I was a wonderful parent before I had children." - How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

3. "There's a photo on my wall of a woman I've never met, its left corner torn and patched together with tape." - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

4. "For eight years I dreamed of fire." - The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

5. "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." - Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

6. "'Shit,' I thought to myself, 'I'm going to be late to New Testament class.'" - Pastrix by Nadia Bolz-Weber

7. "I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice — not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany." - A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

8. "Dying really isn't so bad after you've done it once." - The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

9. "In March of 2011, a person I didn't know, and would never meet, tried to have me arrested for what she viewed as criminally irresponsible parenting." - Small Animals by Kim Brooks

10. "Those who know me now will be surprised to learn that I was a great talker as a child." - We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

Do any of these first lines make you interested?

Looking back:
One year ago I was reading: 84, Charing Cross Road and The Trespasser
Five years ago I was reading: Gilead, Summer of My German Soldier, and What If?
Ten years ago I was reading: Tuck Everlasting

Top Ten Quotations From the Past Year's Reading

I'm linking up with That Artsy Reader Girl for another Top Ten Tuesday.

This was a Top Ten Tuesday topic back in 2015, and I decided to take the same approach I did then — export my saved quotations from Goodreads and then look at just what I read in the past year.

1. "We love films because they make us feel something. They speak to our desires, which are never small. They allow us to escape and to dream and to gaze into eyes that are impossibly beautiful and huge. They fill us with longing. But also. They tell us to remember; they remind us of life. Remember, they say, how much it hurts to have your heart broken. Remember about death and suffering and the complexities of living. Remember what it is like to love someone. Remember how it is to be loved. Remember what you feel in this moment. Remember this. Remember this." - Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour
This is one of my favorite moments in the book, when the main character realizes she doesn't need her life to play out like a movie script because all movies are trying to do is capture the best parts of living anyway.

2. "That's the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?" - The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
This is a great moment, when Starr and her Asian friend realize they've both let their white friend get away with saying offensive things because they were each too uncomfortable to make a scene, and they make a pact not to let it happen again.

3. "Fear is good. In the right degree it prevents us from making fools of ourselves. But in the wrong measure it prevents us from fully living. Fear is our boon companion but never our master." - Moloka'i by Alan Brennert
This is advice given to a character who's afraid of breaking rules, even ones that are imposed on her without good reason — a feeling I can relate to as a rigid rule-follower.

4. "In the era of colorblindness, it is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans. Once you're labeled a felon, the old forms of discrimination—employment discrimination, housing discrimination, denial of the right to vote, denial of educational opportunity, denial of food stamps and other public benefits, and exclusion from jury service—are suddenly legal. As a criminal, you have scarcely more rights, and arguably less respect, than a black man living in Alabama at the height of Jim Crow. We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." - The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
I could fill a whole post with passages from this book (go read it!) but this one kind of sums up the book's thesis, with a nice jab at the problem of "colorblindness" as well. A close second would be the part where she blows apart the idea that individual choice plays the largest role in who gets locked up.

5. "'You're not alone, and you're not the one in charge,' Mother said gently. 'Ask for help when you need it, and give help when you can. I think that is how we serve God—and each other and ourselves—in times as dark as these.'" - The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
I read this book soon after Trump's inauguration, and it was a helpful reminder for me of what I have control over and what are and are not my responsibilities right now.

6. "Forgiving isn't something you do for someone else. It's something you do for yourself. It's saying, 'You're not important enough to have a stranglehold on me.' It's saying, 'You don't get to trap me in the past. I am worthy of a future." - The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
I've heard many variations on this theme over the years, but it's always nice to have a well-worded reminder.

7. "Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy — in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other." - Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
I think this leaves out a key piece — you can love a person but not trust them — but the general idea is solid, that a healthy, loving relationship between two people is characterized by less jealousy, not more.

8. "'But you know, there's an upside here. Because when you spend so much time just intensely wanting something, and then you actually get the thing? It's magic.' All of a sudden, I feel like crying. In a good way. In the best way. Because I know exactly what she means. It's butterflies and haziness and heart eyes, but underneath all that, there's this bass line of I can't believe this. I can't believe this is me. I can't quite articulate the sweetness of that feeling. It's finding out the door you were banging on is finally unlocked. Maybe it was unlocked the whole time." - The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli
I related hardcore to this book's protagonist, and especially this idea that inspired the book's title: Once you finally find someone who loves you, you realize that your lack of success in love before didn't actually mean there was something fundamentally wrong with you, and that's an amazing feeling.

9. "Some people ask: 'Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?' Because that would be dishonest. Feminism is, of course, part of human rights in general—but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender. It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded. It would be a way of denying that the problem of gender targets women." - We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
See also: Why we say "Black Lives Matter."

10. "There's no 'should' or 'should not' when it comes to having feelings. They're part of who we are and their origins are beyond our control. When we can believe that, we may find it easier to make constructive choices about what to do with those feelings." - The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
There are a lot of quotations I could have pulled from this book — I literally got a desk calendar full of them after reading it — but much of Mister Rogers' wisdom centers around feelings, and this is a nice overall reminder about the role feelings (should) play in our lives.

Which are some of your favorite book quotations?

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Top Ten Quotations I Loved From Books I Read In The Past Year

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

I wasn't sure how I was going to figure out which of my saved quotations were from books I'd read in the past year, but then I learned that Goodreads has an "Export My Quotes" feature. Using the vlookup feature in Excel I could link these with another spreadsheet of when I read each book, and narrow down my list pretty easily.

That still doesn't mean it's easy to pick just ten! Here's what I came up with.

1. "Seeing myself or my church or my denomination as "the blessing" -- like so many mission trips to help "those less fortunate than ourselves" -- can easily descend into a blend of benevolence and paternalism. We can start to see the "poor" as supporting characters in a big story about how noble, selfless, and helpful we are." - Accidental Saints by Nadia Bolz-Weber
Nadia Bolz-Weber just kind of rains truth when she writes or speaks.

2. "When Jean Piaget lectured in the United States, he was frequently asked whether the rate at which children attained his cognitive stages could be accelerated -- in other words, whether you could train your child to be 'ahead' of other children. Piaget was bewildered by the question. In his view of development, being 'ahead' or 'behind' anyone else was meaningless. But he got the question often enough that he came to associate it with a particular worldview: he called it 'the American Question.'" - Baby Meets World by Nicholas Day
This is something I've kept in mind frequently as we watch our little guy grow and learn.

3. "You can't always judge people by the things they done. You got to judge them by what they are doing now." - Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
I don't think you need to be ignorant of how someone's acted in the past, but there should always be room for someone to change.

4. "You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority." - Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
This book is chockfull of uncomfortable truths like this -- that we can't always point to others or "the system" as the root of all problems.

5. "Idealism easily becomes dangerous because it brings with it, almost inevitably, the belief that the ends justify the means. If you are fighting for good or for God, what matters is the outcome, not the path. People have little respect for rules; we respect the moral principles that underlie most rules. But when a moral mission and legal rules are incompatible, we usually care more about the mission." - The Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt
I've been thinking about this recently with this past week's events in Paris, both in how terrorists operate and in the justifications used for retaliating against them.

6. "In life you'll meet a lot of jerks. If they hurt you, tell yourself that it's because they're stupid. That will help keep you from reacting to their cruelty. Because there is nothing worse than bitterness and vengeance... Always keep your dignity and be true to yourself." - Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
This was a remark by Satrapi's grandmother, who'd lived long enough to know a thing or two about what's worth holding onto.

7. "Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority. That was what he was protecting rather hot-headedly and with too much emphasis, because it was a jewel to him of the rarest price." - A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
More than 85 years ago, Woolf was pointing to this truth: many men, even if they say they believe in gender equality, don't actually want their own slice of the pie to get any smaller.

8. "They lost Olivia at Newport Beach. The panic made Alice hyperventilate. You were meant to be watching her, Nick kept saying. As if that were the point. That Alice had made a mistake. Not that Olivia was missing, but that it was Alice's fault." - What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty
This exemplifies why I fell in love with Moriarty's writing in this book. She nails the way real conversations play out, especially in marriage and friendship.

9. "As a committed Christian, I have always struggled with locked doors -- doors by which we on the inside lock out "the others" -- Jews, Muslims, Mormons, liberals, doubters, agnostics, gay folks, whomever. The more we insiders succeed in shutting others out, the more I tend to feel locked in, caged, trapped." - Why Did Jesus, Moses, the Buddha, and Mohammed Cross the Road? by Brian McLaren
Although I don't think McLaren ultimately resolves the paradox he presents in this book, he certainly captures well what it feels like to live in the middle of it.

10. "That is the motto women should constantly repeat over and over again. Good for her! Not for me." - Yes Please by Amy Poehler
A new classic quotation that celebrates the diversity in ways to live one's life and raise one's family.

What are some of your favorite quotations from your recent reads?

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Top Ten Inspiring Quotations from Books

I'm linking up with The Broke and the Bookish for another Top Ten Tuesday.

I disappeared there for a while, I know... I've been busy implementing the strategies from my favorite March read. It's been amazingly awesome and freeing to cull my belongings down to only the things I actually want to own and use — which shouldn't be a radical concept, but somehow is. I no longer need to come up with reasons to get rid of things, only to decide what I want to keep and let go of the rest. I'm through three of the five categories and have the largest and hardest ones left, but I feel ready for them. So awesome!

Anyway, today we are sharing our top ten inspiring quotations from books. I currently have 1,440 favorited quotations in Goodreads, but what I found going through them is that I tend to save quotations because they are true — that is, they succinctly capture in words some facet of life. These quotations, though, are inspiring and challenge me to think or act differently. And yes, some of them are from books I didn't particularly like, but there can still be a good line or two in a bad book!

Top ten inspiring quotations:

1. "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

2. "J'aurais dû être plus gentille—I should have been more kind. That is something a person will never regret. You will never say to yourself when you are old, Ah, I wish I was not good to that person. You will never think that." Khaled Hosseini, And the Mountains Echoed

3. "Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, the thirst that is unquenchable?" Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

4. "If you come to a river and find a boat at the edge, you will use that boat and it will serve you well, but once across the river, do you put the boat on your shoulders and carry it with you on the rest of your journey?" Christopher Moore, Lamb

5. "$1,000,000 in the bank isn't the fantasy. The fantasy is the lifestyle of complete freedom it supposedly allows." Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek

6. "I used to be afraid of failing at something that really mattered to me, but now I'm more afraid of succeeding at things that don't matter." Bob Goff, Love Does

7. "Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me." Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider

8. "You can't spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won't work. You'll just end up missing the life you have." Kim Edwards, The Memory Keeper's Daughter

9. "Whatever the problem, be part of the solution. Don't just sit around raising questions and pointing out obstacles." Tina Fey, Bossypants

10. "You can't always judge people by the things they done. You got to judge them by what they are doing now." Kate DiCamillo, Because of Winn-Dixie

What are some of your favorite book quotations?

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