Just a Writer Reading for Beauty

 

Irene Latham reading

This month we're talking about Beauty—which I love, because "Beauty" is my 2024 One Little Word.

One way beauty finds its way into my life is through the books I read. 

For as long as I can remember I have recorded beautiful words...for joy, education, inspiration!

Once upon a time I'd handwrite passages into a journal. These days I create a digital file for any book I want to highlight or dog-ear. 

Some of these files are pages long. 

Others contain just a single quote or passage.

Today I'd like to share with you a small sampling taken from my alphabetized-by-book-title "MG/YA" sub-folder in my much larger "Books I've Read" folder. Enjoy!

She had never seen waves before, Her eye rested upon them, fascinated; how much time passed, or how any waves she tracked, she had no idea. Farther out to sea, they weren’t waves at all, only mounds, like furrows in a field. Then, somehow, each mound rose to an edge, thin as the blade of knife. The knife-edge tilted, the wave coiled, and there wa a moment when it seemed as if it must break – and yet it did not. Then a line of brightness, crooked and notched like paper catching fire, rippled across the top edge of the wave. The water crashed and erupted, droplets spurting straight up and leapfrogging off the surface of the foam.

 - Laura Amy Schlitz, A DROWNED MAIDEN'S HAIR

I wish I had a hundred years,” she said, very quietly. “A hundred years I could give to you.”

 - Patrick Ness, A MONSTER CALLS

'It’s very painful ins’t it?'

I nodded. George was nodding, too. We were like a field of tulips in a breeze.

‘And hard to let go,’ she went on. ‘There’s no getting around that. But you must remember, even if you never understand what happened, what went wrong, that you will have friendship again, good friendship. Because you are a person capable of friendship. And sooner or later there will be someone who deserves you.’ 

- Lynne Rae Perkins, ALL ALONE IN THE UNIVERSE

It was beautiful. The kind of beautiful that makes you go quiet inside. 

- Crystal Chan, BIRD