Quotation
"'Dexter, I love you so much. So, so much, and I probably always will.' Her lips touched his cheek. 'I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.'" -David Nicholls, One Day

Quotations
"Besides, doesn't everybody know that it doesn't make a mite of difference how a love-letter is spelled?" -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

"…but her Letters were always unsatisfactory, and though she did not openly avow her feelings, yet every line proved her to be Unhappy." -Jane Austen, "Catharine, or the Bower"

"'Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very positive curse.'" -Jane Austen, Emma

"Every body at all addicted to letter writing, without having much to say, which will include a large proportion of the female world at least…" -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

"'Every body allows that the talent of writing agreeable letters is peculiarly female.'" -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

"…as if letters couldn't lie.  But Philip knew better than that, sprawling his thanks across a page to Aunt Alice who had given him a teddy bear he was too old for.  Letter could lie all right, but they made the lie permanent.  They lay as evidence against you: they made you meaner than the spoken word." -Graham Greene, "The Basement Room"

"Letters, like compilation tapes, were really vehicles for unexpressed emotions…" -David Nicholls, One Day

"John Donne said more than kisses, letters mingle souls and so they do…" -Zadie Smith, White Teeth

Quotation
"'If you're my friend I should be able to talk to you but I can't, and if I can't talk to you, well, what is the point of you? Of us?'" -David Nicholls, One Day

Quotation
"The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside him, half joy, half terrible sadness." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

Quotation
"'I'm afraid that if my dream is realized, I'll have no reason to go on living.'" -Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist (Translated by Alan R. Clarke)

Quotation
"…never made the mistake of thinking gaiety was happiness…" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

Quotation
"'Does color make you sort of dizzy?' asked Rebecca.
'No,' answered Emma Jane after a long pause; 'no, it don't; not a mite.'
'Perhaps dizzy isn't just the right word, but it's nearest. I'd like to eat color, and drink it, and sleep in it.'" -Kate Douglas Wiggins, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm

Painting
Untitled

*Available for purchase on Etsy

Quotation
"'You feel, I suppose, that, in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself: you feel a void in your heart which nothing else can occupy.  Society is becoming irksome; and as for the amusements in which you were wont to share at Bath, the very idea of which without her is abhorrent.  You would not, for instance, now go to a ball for the world.  You feel that you have no longer any friend to whom you can speak with unreserve; on whose regard you can place dependence; or whose counsel, in any difficult, you could rely on.'" -Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Quotations
"Little, silly, dreamy, happy, ignorant Fourteen! Always thinking that something great and wonderful and beautiful lay in the years ahead." -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

"'Her ignorance made the unknown infinitely vast.'" -Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim

"The comforts of ignorance seemed utterly denied her." -Virginia Woolf, Orlando

"Children's talent to endure stems from their ignorance of alternatives." -Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Quotation
"'Words are the source of misunderstandings.'" -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince (Translated by Katherine Woods)

Quotations
"'I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those wreckers of all but the best laid plans.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"He wanted to tell them what that meant to him, but he simply could not find words important enough." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"'All's fair in love and war,' said Ron brightly, 'and this is a bit of both.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"It was not, after all, so easy to die." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"…their presence was his courage, and the reason he was able to keep putting one foot in front of the other." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"'It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"'Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"'Tell me one last thing,' said Harry. 'Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?'
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Random Musing
When the first Harry Potter film came out, I was eleven years old and already in love with the book series. I went to see the movie with my family and, even at the very young age of eleven, it disappointed me. I didn't see another Harry Potter movie in theaters until Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince came out and my mom decided (after seeing a well-done trailer) that she wanted to see it. We went and to my surprise I found myself really enjoying the movie. From there began the slow shift in my view of the movie series.

I went from being a vocal detractor of the Harry Potter movies to really appreciating them for their own merits. They're entertaining movies which do a fair job of adapting complicated material. Could they be better? Yes. Should you read the books instead of watching the movies? Yes. Are they very fun to watch despite not being nearly as good as their source material? Yes.

My opinion that the movies simply need to be fun and entertaining, as opposed to legitimately good, changed slightly with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Here was a genuinely good movie - not just for a Harry Potter movie, but simply as a movie on its own terms. I absolutely loved the film - thought it was a phenomenal adaptation, and I've watched it many many times. It's my favorite of the Harry Potter films, and because of how much I like it my expectations for the final film were astronomical. The other movies in the series could stay simply entertaining, but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was going to be adapted into two genuinely wonderful films.

And so last night, like so many other people, I went to the midnight premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 expecting an amazing epic finale to the series. Unlike so many other people though, I don't think I loved the film. I say "think" because I need to see the movie one more time to decide how I really feel about it.

I was expecting a movie that would be just as good as Part 1. Personally I don't believe that the movie managed that gargantuan task. The pacing felt overly manic to me, deaths were (oddly) not treated with the respect or gravitas I was expecting, and special effects took over characters. This isn't to say that Part 2 isn't a good movie. I believe it is. There are some very well-done moments and it's entertaining and fun to watch in the same way most Harry Potter films are. I have no qualms about paying to see it again in theaters. However, is it what I wanted it to be? No. Did it live up to my expectations? No. And do I agree with Rotten Tomatoes (and apparently the public audience at large) that it is the best of the Harry Potter films? A very firm "no."

Quotations
"'It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live, remember that.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

"'…to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

"'…humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

"'…the best of us must sometimes eat our words.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"'It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

"'Curiosity is not a sin,' he said. 'But we should exercise caution with our curiosity…'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

"'Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young…and I seem to have forgotten lately….'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

"'I don't mean to be rude — ' he began, in a tone that threatened rudeness in every syllable.
'— yet, sadly, accidental rudeness occurs alarmingly often,' Dumbledore finished the sentence gravely. 'Best to say nothing at all, my dear man.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"'And now, Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"'Dumbledore says people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right,' said Hermione." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"'Ah, Harry, how often this happens, even between the best of friends! Each of us believes that what he has to say is much more important than anything the other might have to contribute!'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"'It is natural to be afraid…'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"'Killing is not nearly as easy as the innocent believe…'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"'…I'm the one with the wand…you're at my mercy…'
'No, Draco,' said Dumbledore quietly. 'It is my mercy, and not yours, that matters now.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

"'It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"'Do not pity the dead, Harry. Pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

"'Tell me one last thing,' said Harry. 'Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?'
Dumbledore beamed at him, and his voice sounded loud and strong in Harry's ears even though the bright mist was descending again, obscuring his figure.
'Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Quotations
"'I hope you're pleased with yourself. We could all have been killed — or worse, expelled.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

"'What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

"'Broaden your minds, my dears, and allow your eyes to see past the mundane!…'"
-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

"Professor Trelawney behaved almost normally until the very end of Christmas dinner, two hours later. Full to bursting with Christmas dinner and still wearing their party hats, Harry and Ron got up first from the table and she shrieked loudly.
'My dears! Which of you left his seat first? Which?'
'Dunno,' said Ron, looking uneasily at Harry.
'I doubt it will make much difference,' said Professor McGonagall coldly, 'unless a mad axe-man is waiting outside the doors to slaughter the first into the entrance hall.'
Even Ron laughed. Professor Trelawney looked highly affronted." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

"'Harry Potter will do the task!' squeaked the elf. 'Dobby knew Harry Potter had not found the right book, so Dobby did it for him!'
'What?' said Harry. 'But you don't know what the second task is —'
'Dobby knows, sir! Harry Potter has to go into the lake and find his Wheezy —'
'Find my what?'
'— and take his Wheezy back from the merpeople!'
'What's a Wheezy?'
'Your Wheezy, sir, your Wheezy — Wheezy who is giving Dobby his sweater!'"
-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

"Hermione yawned widely and poured herself some coffee. She looked mildly pleased about something, and when Ron asked her what she had to be so happy about, she simply said, 'The hats have gone. Seems the house-elves do want freedom after all.'
'I wouldn't bet on it,' Ron told her cuttingly. 'They might not count as clothes. They didn't look anything like hats to me, more like woolly bladders.'
Hermione did not speak to him all morning." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

"…'Well, you have!' she said. 'And you won't look at any of us!'
'It's you lot who won't look at me!' said Harry angrily.
'Maybe you're taking it in turns to look and keep missing each other,' suggested Hermione, the corners of her mouth twitching." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

"'And from now on, I don't care if my tea leaves spell die, Ron, die — I'm just chucking them in the bin where they belong.'" -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Random Musing
In honor of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 coming out this Friday, let's have some Harry Potter posts for the next few days.

Quotation
"All the same, without being morbid, and giving way to—to memories and so on, I must confess that there does seem to me something sad in life. It is hard to say what it is. I don't mean the sorrow that we all know, like illness and poverty and death. No, it is something different. It is there, deep down, deep down, part of one, like one's breathing. However hard I work and tire myself I have only to stop to know it is there, waiting. I often wonder if everybody feels the same. One can never know. But isn't it extraordinary that under his sweet, joyful little singing it was just this sadness—ah, what is it? —that I heard?" -Katherine Mansfield, "The Canary"

Painting
Untitled

Quotation
"It is so beautiful, so exciting, this love, that I tremble on the verge of it, and offer, quite out of my own habit, to look for a brooch on a beach; also it is the stupidest, the most barbaric of human passions, and turns a nice young man with a profile like a gem (Paul's was exquisite) into a bully with a crowbar (he was swaggering, he was insolent) in the Middle End Road.  Yet, she said to herself, from the dawn of time odes have been sung to love; wreaths heaped and roses; and if you asked nine people out of ten they would say they wanted nothing but this; while the women, judging from her own experience, would all the time be feeling, This is not what we want; there is nothing more tedious, puerile, and inhumane than love; yet it is also beautiful and necessary." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

Quotations
"Hermione yawned widely and poured herself some coffee. She looked mildly pleased about something, and when Ron asked her what she had to be so happy about, she simply said, 'The hats have gone. Seems the house-elves do want freedom after all.'
'I wouldn't bet on it,' Ron told her cuttingly. 'They might not count as clothes. They didn't look anything like hats to me, more like woolly bladders.'
Hermione did not speak to him all morning." -J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

"1
There is a hole in the garden. It is empty. I envy it.

Emptiness: the only freedom there is
In a fallen world…" -Jay Hopler, "And the Sunflower Weeps for the Sun, Its Flower"

Lorelai: Oh, he's totally fine having his personal freedom slowly stripped away as long as he's completely unaware that it's happening. Just like a true American. -Gilmore Girls (Episode 6.13: Friday Night's Alright For Fighting)

Random Musing
I know these aren't exactly fitting for the 4th of July (except for the very last one, ha), but they're the only quotes I have that had anything at all to do with "freedom."

Quotations
"…instead of the misery and disillusion of sixty odd years of mental vacuum, of physical squalor, I would spare them all by ending everything at the height of my so-called career while there were still illusions left among my profs, still poems to be published in Harper's, still a memory at least that would be worthwhile." -Sylvia Plath, Letters Home

"But the peculiarity of these two strong memories is that each was very simple.  I am hardly aware of myself, but only of the sensation.  I am only the container of the feeling of ecstasy, of the feeling of rapture.  Perhaps this is characteristic of all childhood memories; perhaps it accounts for their strength.  Later we add to feelings much that makes them more complex; and therefore less strong; or if not less strong, less isolated, less complete." -Virginia Woolf, A Sketch of the Past

"He smiled the most exquisite smile, veiled by memory, tinged by dreams." -Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

"Anyways, these ideas or feelings or ramblings had their satisfactions.  They turned the pain of others into memories of one's own.  They turned pain, which is natural, enduring, and eternally triumphant, into personal memory, which is human, brief, and eternally elusive." -Roberto Bolaño, 2666 (Translated by Natasha Wimmer)

"Nothing told her anything, except one thing — unless she had lost her memory, she had lost her way." -Elizabeth Bowen, "The Inherited Clock"

"'…I shall sit with my memories. I expect to spend some time getting to know them.'" -Elizabeth Bowen, "The Inherited Clock"

"'People's memories are very short — a lucky thing, I always think.'" -Agatha Christie, "The Thumbmark of St. Peter"

"Moments of their secret life together burst like stars upon his memory." -James Joyce, "The Dead"

"No memory of the past touched him, for his mind was full of a present joy." -James Joyce, "A Little Cloud"

"He began to doubt the reality of what memory told him." -James Joyce, "A Painful Case"

"I liked the man. He was lean with memories." -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

"My memory is a goddamn liar." -Elizabeth McCracken, An Exact Replica of a Figment                                                                               of My Imagination

"It is only my memory that holds me here. Time, let me vanish. Then what we separate by our very presence can come together." -Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

"…It had been made for happy remembering
By people who were still too young
To have learned about memory…" -Ted Hughes, "A Short Film"

Random Musing
I don't think a post about "memory" would be complete without the following video:

Quotation
"'But don't you think,' I persist, 'that it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?'" -Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

Quotation
"It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting…" -Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist (Translated by Alan R. Clarke)