With midterms coming up, we might be in need of some motivation. Our grades could use all the hope they can get, so here are 27 literary quotes to give you the need and hope to keep pushing on.
1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs."
2. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster
"So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they are impossible."
3. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
"And, when you want, all the universe conspires in helping you achieve it."
4. The Diary of Anne Frank by Anne Frank
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”
5. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
"There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere."
6. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
“Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say that it shall not.”
7. Oh, The Places You'll Go by Dr. Seuss
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”
8. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
“Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists... it is real... it is possible... it's yours.”
9. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
“If you don’t try at anything, you can’t fail… it takes back bone to lead the life you want.”
10. Engleby by Sebastian Faulks
“And sometimes in life, I imagine, good things do happen. Most of the time, it's the opposite, obviously. But I don't think you should rule out the possibility that just occasionally chance might deal you a good card.”
11. American Psycho by Bret Easton Eillis
“I feel I'm moving toward as well as away from something, and anything is possible.”
12. Money by Martin Amis
“The future could go this way, that way. The future's futures have never looked so rocky. Don't put money on it. Take my advice and stick to the present. It's the real stuff, the only stuff, it's all there is, the present, the panting present.”
13. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
“I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.”
14. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
“What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment.”
15. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
“And I know I can do this because I went to London on my own, and because I solved the mystery…and I was brave and I wrote a book and that means I can do anything.”
16. The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
17. The White Company by Arthur Conan Doyle
"The weak man becomes strong when he has nothing, for then only can he feel the wild, mad thrill of despair."
18. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
“My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.”
19. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote
"You call yourself a free spirit, a 'wild thing,' and you're terrified somebody gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."
20. Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
"Promise me you'll remember: you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."
21. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
"I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning to sail my ship."
22. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
23. East of Eden by John Steinbeck
"And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good."
24. Wide Awake by David Levithan
"Do not just seek happiness for yourself. Seek happiness for all. Through kindness. Through mercy."
25. The Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King
"Get busy living, or get busy dying."
26. The Twits by Roald Dahl
"If you have good thoughts they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."
27. I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
"Maybe everyone can live beyond what they are capable of."
