I love a good book quote. In fact, I used to keep notebooks upon notebooks of “collections” of my favorite quotes. I’ve always been a BIG annotator, and almost always highlight and write in my books. I know, I know… but that’s a controversial topic for another post. Today I just want to share with you some of my favorite quotes from some of the Historical Fiction and Fantasy novels I read last year.
HISTORICAL FICTION
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
If I were to share all of the quotes I loves from Demon Copperhead, I’d just end up copying the book word for word. This novel opened my eyes to so much and to a region of the US that I, along with many other American’s, know very little about besides stereotypes and harmful misconceptions. Even if you don’t care to learn about southern Appalachia, and I think you should, Demon Copperhead will challenge the way you think about poverty, food, addiction and much more.
“There’s this thing that happens, let’s say at school where a bunch of guys are in the bathroom, at the urinal, laughing about some dork that made an anus of himself in gym. You’re all basically nice guys, right? You know right from wrong, and would not in a million years be brutal to the poor guy’s face. And then it happens: the dork was in the shitter. He comes out of the stall with this look. He heard everything. And you realize you’re not really that nice of a guy. This is what I would say if I could, to all smart people of the world with their dumb hillbilly jokes: We are right here in the stall. We can actually hear you.”
Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
“Live long enough, and all things you ever loved can turn around to scorch you blind. The wonder is that you could start life with nothing, end with nothing, and lose so much in between.”
Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
“It hit me pretty hard, how there’s no kind of sad in this world that will stop it turning.”
Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
“One thing I learned from Mr. Armstrong while striving heartily to remain uneducated: a good story doesn’t just copy life, it pushes back on it.”
Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead
The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
The Great Alone was one of my favorite reads of 2023. A wild adventure through a stunning Alaskan landscape and a harsh and unforgiving one at that. When a young girl is thrown into one of the world’s most harsh landscapes by her unstable father she must learn to survive both his violent moods and the dangerous winters. Leni’s story absolutely broke my heart and rebuilt it.
“Alaska isn’t about who you were when you headed this way. It’s about who you become. You are out here in the wild, girls. That isn’t some fable or fairytale. It’s real. Hard.”
Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone
“The natural born predator could seem domesticated, even friendly, could lick your throat affectionately or rub up against you to get a back scratch. But you knew, or should know, that it was a wild thing you lived with, that a collar and a leash and a bowl of food might tame the actions of the beast, but couldn’t change its essential nature. In a split second, less time than it took to exhale a breath, that wolf could claim its nature and turn, fangs bared.”
Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone
“Now she knew there were a hundred ways to be lost and even more ways to be found.”
Kristin Hannah, The Great Alone
The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
A unique story set in the south during the Reconstruction era, I was blown away by the prose in this debut novel. The Sweetness of Water, which was nominated for the Booker Prize, absolutely has the potential to become a classic American novel.
“In the nervous chatter of his voice, the eyes that darted like those of an animal hiding from prey, the young man gained Georges sympathy, perhaps the only morsel of it left in an otherwise broken heart.”
Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water
“It was dark enough that the forest merged with the blackness of the sky and the world had no beginning or end, as if her might sleep upon the ground and wake up staring down from the stars.”
Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water
“For so long Landry had been the focus of his dreams, his world, and Prentiss felt there was a selfishness in his brothers sudden absence, as though rather than truly dying, Landry had been set free only to leave Prentiss in the horror of living without the very person who had made doing so worthwhile.”
Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water
Fantasy
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
A fairytale that speaks on the loss of innocence, our inevitable decay and that things are not always what they seem, The Last Unicorn is your classic fantasy adventure filled to the brim with wisdom and philosophical musings. Made into an animated film of the same name, this novel is full of nostalgia.
” I am myself still. This body is dying. I can feel it rotting all around me. How can anything that is going to die be real? How can it be truly beautiful?”
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
“You are quick for what you are,’ he said, ‘but slow, I think for what you were. It is said that love makes men swift and women slow. I will catch you at last if you love me much more.”
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
“The true secret of being a hero lies in knowing the order of things. The swineherd cannot already be wed to the princess when he embarks on his adventures, nor can the boy knock at the witches door when she is away on vacation. The wicked uncle cannot be found out and foiled before he does something wicked. Things must happen when it is time for them to happen. Quests may not be left to rot like unripened fruit; Unicorns may go unreduced a long time, but not forever. The happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story.”
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
“I never looked at you without seeing the sweetness of the way the world goes together, or without sorrow for its spoiling.”
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
“the Unicorn said ‘ That is true. you are a man and men can do nothing that makes any difference.”
Peter S. Beagle, The Last Unicorn
The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean
Bordering on horror, this fantasy imagines a world in which human like beings rely on ink and pages for their nourishment. Some of them are born with a taste for more than words, and The Book Eaters is unmistakably human in its analysis of what it means to be a monster and who we choose to love.
“For here was the thing that no fairy tale would ever admit, but that she understood in that moment: love was not inherently good.”
Sunyi Dean, The Book Eaters
“But I do know we can only live by the light we’re given, and some of us are given no light at all. What else can we do except learn to see in the dark?”
Sunyi Dean, The Book Eaters
“Love doesn’t have a cost. It’s just a choice you make, the way you choose to keep breathing or keep living. It’s not about worth and it’s not about price. Those concepts don’t apply.”
Sunyi Dean, The Book Eaters
“Poets would tell you that love was electricity in your veins that could light a room. That it was a river in your soul to lift you up and carry you away, or a fire inside the hearth to keep you warm. Yet electricity could also fry, rivers could drown, and fires could burn; love could be destructive. Punishingly, fatally destructive.”
Sunyi Dean, The Book Eaters
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
A young woman awakens an ancient god of death and is forced to join him in his quest to retake his throne. What results from this and from somewhere in between the lands of the living and the dead is an endless supply of dreamy language. You can always count on a mythology reimagining to conjure up celestial level prose.
“In her spare time, she looked to books or the stars for company.”
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow
“The imagination of mortals shaped the gods, carving their faces and their myriad forms, just as the water molds the stones in its path, wearing them down through the centuries.”
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow
“Is that why you stare at the stars?’ he asked. ‘Are you searching for beauty or dreaming with your eyes wide open?”
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow
“Death, she walked next to Death, and Death wore the face of a man. So she spoke to Death like a man, raised her voice to him, she might even defy him, but of course he was no man.”
Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Gods of Jade and Shadow
Like I said, if I quoted every line I loved here, we’d have an entire book. One of my favorite things and the reason why I mark my books up, is because I rarely re-read books but I sure do love to thumb through them and revisit all of my favorite lines and scenes. It truly is a pleasure to be able to share all of my favorite bits of these books with all of you and hopefully some of these quotes might help a reader find a book they haven’t read yet, maybe even one they’ll love.
I’d love to hear some of your favorite book quotes – from any genre – drop them in the comments below!
The quote from Gods of Shade and Arrows hits so much! 🤍🤍🤍