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
"'Listen to the trees talking in their sleep,' she whispered, as he lifted her to the ground. 'What nice dreams they must have!'" -L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

"But the little path was shadowy and narrow. Trees crowded over it, and trees are never quite as friendly to human beings after nightfall as they are in daylight. They wrap themselves away from us. They whisper and plot furtively. If they reach out a hand to us it has a hostile, tentative touch. People walking amid the trees after night always draw closer together instinctively and involuntarily, making an alliance, physical and mental, against certain alien powers around them." -L.M. Montgomery, Rainbow Valley

"'This afternoon I sat at my window and alternately wrote at my new serial and watched a couple of dear, amusing, youngish maple-trees at the foot of the garden. They whispered secrets to each other all the afternoon. They would bend together and talk earnestly for a few moments, then spring back and look at each other, throwing up their hands comically in horror and amazement over their mutual revelations. I wonder what new scandal is afoot in Treeland.'" -L.M. Montgomery, Emily's Quest

Rory: I have to tell you, this tree is perfect.
Lorelai: All girls think their tree is perfect.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.06: An Affair to Remember)

Random Musing
I love how incredibly whimsical L.M. Montgomery's quote about Treeland is. I wish I could write anything as charming as that. But alas, the dark and dreary are more along my lines than the enchanting.

In entirely unrelated news, Happy Birthday to my sisters Namira and Nishat! They turned 23 and 19 respectively. (And yes, it is rather strange that they have the exact same birthday when they're four years apart.)

Quotation
Emily: All right, fine. Sweetie's father was a very poor man, so poor that Sweetie and her four siblings all had to sleep in a hollowed-out tree trunk because the house was only big enough for their parents. One winter, there was no food, so Sweetie crawled out of her trunk, wrapped her feet in newspaper, and walked forty miles in the snow to the nearest town, where she stumbled into a candy store. The owner took pity on her and gave her bags of candy, a dill pickle, and drove her back to her family. He promptly offered a job to her father, who gladly accepted and eventually owned that store and turned it into one of the most important candy emporiums in the world. And that is how she got the name Sweetie. There, how was that?
Lorelai: Now, that was a pretty good story.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.16: The Reigning Lorelai)

Quotations
"'I like rain when it has turned to snow and becomes palpable.'" -Virginia Woolf, The Waves

Lorelai: Everything's magical when it snows…
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.08: Love and Snow and War)

Lorelai: The world changes when it snows. It gets quiet. Everything softens.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.08: Love and Snow and War)

Painting
Untitled

Quotations
"Marigold listened and sympathized with one side of her mind, and with the other carried on her own small though-processes. As is the way of womenkind of all ages, whether men know it or not." -L.M. Montgomery, Magic for Marigold

"…and who shall deny that this blankness of mind, when combined with profusion, mother wit, old wives' tales, haphazard ways, moments of astonishing daring, humour and sentimentality – who shall deny that in these respects every woman is nicer than any man?" -Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room

"And I knew that in spite of all the roses and kisses and restaurant dinners a man showered on a woman before he married her, what he secretly wanted when the wedding service ended was for her to flatten out underneath his feet like Mrs. Willard's kitchen mat." -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

"My aunt once said the world would never find peace until men fell at their women's feet and asked for forgiveness." -Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Paris: No man is an island, but this woman is.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 6.13: Friday Night's Alright For Fighting)

Quotation
Lorelai: Ooh, and here are your somber highlighters, your maudlin pencils, your manic-depressive pens.
Rory: Mom.
Lorelai: Now these erasers are on lithium, so they may seem cheerful but we actually caught them trying to shove themselves in the pencil sharpener earlier.
Rory: I’m going home now.
Lorelai: No wait! We’re going to stage an intervention with the neon post-its and make them give up their wacky crazy ways.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Quotations
Paris: Well, how nice it must be to be you. Maybe someday I'll stumble into a Disney movie and suddenly be transported into your body, and after living there awhile, I'll finally realize the beauty of myself. But until that moment, I'm going to go in there and I'm going to become a Puff. Now get out of my way.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 2.07: Like Mother, Like Daughter)

Paris: You're not torturing me, you know. I don't care. My scores were great. I'm very, very happy with my scores. And I hate looking at a sunset so my standard for happiness is high!
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 2.11: Secrets and Loans)

Janet: No. I cannot calm down. I have tried to be reasonable. I have told myself over and over, "God, look at her. Imagine what she's been through to make her turn out like that."
Paris: A lot!
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.05: The Fundamental Things Apply)

Rory: No, I'm just making you crazy.
Paris: Like that's hard. Feel proud.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.09: Ted Koppel's Big Night Out)

Paris: Great, we have one prop, and it's blowing away.
Rory: You knocked it over.
Paris: Well, you put it right in front of me.
Rory: How was I supposed to know you were gonna jump out of your seat like a maniac?
Paris: You know me. You room with me. You should have known.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.17: Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin' the Twist)

Female Student: Is it raining?
Paris: No, it's National Baptism Day. Tie your tubes, idiot.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 4.17: Girls in Bikinis, Boys Doin' the Twist)

Paris: No man is an island, but this woman is.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 6.13: Friday Night's Alright For Fighting)

Quotations
Lorelai: Ooh, and here are your somber highlighters, your maudlin pencils, your manic-depressive pens.
Rory: Mom.
Lorelai: Now these erasers are on lithium, so they may seem cheerful but we actually caught them trying to shove themselves in the pencil sharpener earlier.
Rory: I’m going home now.
Lorelai: No wait! We’re going to stage an intervention with the neon post-its and make them give up their wacky crazy ways.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Lorelai: ...liposuction kills, staaay fat.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Emily: You were on the phone?
Richard: Long distance.
Lorelai: God?
Richard: London.
Lorelai: God lives in London?
Richard: My mother lives in London.
Lorelai: Your mother is God?
Richard: Lorelai.
Lorelai: So, God is a woman…
Richard: Lorelai.
Lorelai: …and a relative, that’s so cool. I’m gonna totally ask for favors. -Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.18: The Third Lorelai)

Rory: I can't hang out or kick back. I need to find a retarded kid and teach him how to play softball.
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 2.02: Hammers and Veils)

Random Musing
If you didn't know this before, you're probably now aware that for me "funny" = Gilmore Girls. If you have not seen this show, that is what you should devote your summer free time to. Just in case anyone anticipated being dead bored all summer and wanted something fun to do. That is my personal recommendation.

Quotations
Rory: I can't be late on my first day of school. Do you know what happens to people when they're late on their first day?
Lorelai: It's shorter?
-Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.02: The Lorelais' First Day at Chilton)

Chilton Dad: What’s exciting about a test?
Lorelai: Do you play golf?
Chilton Dad: Yes I do.
Lorelai: You explain yours, I’ll explain mine.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Lane: Was it a four-way stop?
Rory: What does that matter?
Lane: I don’t know. I don’t know what to ask after you’ve been hit by a deer.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Rory: Well stay in the car.
Lorelai: It’s dangerous in the car with all the kamikaze deer running around.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.04: The Deer Hunters)

Richard: Rory, who's your friend?
Rory: I don't know, but this is Tristan.
- Gilmore Girls (Episode 1.06: Rory's Birthday Parties)