Hello everyone,
When I read, I love to find great quotes or beautiful, thoughtful passages of writing. On my Kindle, I highlight these and they get stored for me to revisit at my own leisure.
One of the main times I do this is in the run up to Christmas, when I look back at some of the best sections I have highlighted. I do not read that many books on Kindle nor do I really use many bookish apps, so these only represent a selection of the books I have read during each calendar year, but it is still fun nonetheless!
So with that in mind, here are some of my favourite highlighted passages from 2023, and the books in which I found them.
They say that ignorance is bliss. They also say that the truth can set you free. You know what else they say? Never meet your idols.
They Lie Here by NS Ford
“No matter how much you care about me, you will never know how it feels to be me. And it makes me sad.”
If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come by Jen St. Jude
“I’m guarded. You’re guarded. We are people pleasers and perfectionists, and it is a bad combination. We like to score, but we pass the ball more. We dedicate our lives to other people. I’ve spent mine looking for my sister.” She shook her head and shrugged. “She never looked for me.”
If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come by Jen St. Jude
Enrique didn’t want a forced love. He wanted love like a light, a presence that drove out the shadows and recast the world into something warm.
The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi
Zofia had thrown it from her immediately, but she would never forget how the dark had tricked her. She hated how it made even the strange turn familiar and the familiar turn strange.
The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi
Some people could walk with galaxies tilting at their heart, planets grinding against their ribs, whole worlds dragging in their wake and never stealing their balance.
The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi
The present was a palimpsest, built upon the layers of that which had been sacred or profane from years past.
The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi
As a historian, he regarded the world in hindsight, but history was never dead. It was furiously alive even if it was lost, even if it existed only as phantoms haunting conquerors or woven into bedtime stories whispered to children.
The Bronzed Beasts by Roshani Chokshi
What I do know is that everywhere has dark places; there’s shadows everywhere and if you think there isn’t then you’re deluding yourself. You just have to burn brighter, that’s all. You have to keep being kind, keep being good and outshine those shadows.
Demon by Matt Wesolowski
I’m not suggesting no one is allowed their opinion. I just wonder if, when that opinion is not informed, when it’s reactionary and ignorant, when they’re not aware of all the facts – what is the purpose of hearing it?
Demon by Matt Wesolowski
We need to start understanding more and commenting a little less. All day, every day we meet with a barrage of opinions, a relentless wave of thoughts and feelings, black and white, right or wrong. Whatever anyone says is torn apart, condemned and praised without a second thought.
Demon by Matt Wesolowski
I could’ve taken the bus, but it always felt disrespectful to slot right back into routine life when someone had just lost theirs.
The Collected Regrets Of Clover by Mikki Brammer
There are few rawer expressions of vulnerability than I love you.
The Collected Regrets Of Clover by Mikki Brammer
“A successful life doesn’t mean you have to date people all the time – or anyone at all”.
The Collected Regrets Of Clover by Mikki Brammer
The fact that all of us were entangled – that everyone on the planet somehow shaped the course of one another’s lives, often without realising it – felt like almost too much for me to comprehend.
The Collected Regrets Of Clover by Mikki Brammer
She’d never live it down if she died at the hands of a few velour-clad sorority girls that doubled as supernatural hit men.
The Library Of Shadows by Rachel Moore
She’d never expected death’s gruesome stare to wear sparkly pink eye shadow, but it did.
The Library Of Shadows by Rachel Moore
“When you love someone, it’s like building a library and filling the shelves. It doesn’t matter how many years its bean since Austen wrote Emma or Fitzgerald wrote This Side Of Paradise. We can still pull them from the bookcases and dive back into the words, the same as the day they were written. All the years and memories are still right here, catalogued inside us.”
The Library Of Shadows by Rachel Moore
Seeing them like this, padding around her dorm in their flannel pyjamas and wrinkled sleep shirts, sheared through a heartstring Este didn’t know she was holding on to. They were planets revolving around each other, just like the ghosts in the senior lounge – a solar system anchored by each other’s gravitational pull. They’d found their place and fit into it perfectly. Este was an asteroid, blazing through their quiet harmony.
The Library Of Shadows by Rachel Moore
I would love to know your thoughts on some of these quotes! Did any of them stand out for you? Did you come across any memorable ones in 2023? Let me know in the comments!
Happy reading 🙂
Stephen Reads Books 