MONDAY MOTIVATION - "I Cannot Live Without Books" (Thomas Jefferson)

I'm an avid reader. I love to read all kinds of books - fiction, non-fiction, biographies, religious texts, self improvement books, fairy tales... everything.

Why do books appeal to me so much? There are a few reasons:

1. Books are an escape from the difficulties of life - if even for just a little while.
2. Books put me into other people's shoes, and allow me to experience things they experience.
3. Books help me gain knowledge - just about the only thing I'll take with me when I leave this world.
4. Books help me see that no matter what hard thing I am dealing with, someone somewhere else is facing something even harder.

Books help me step away from being a breast cancer patient/survivor for a minute, and put me into someone else's shoes - something that really helps me cope.

So, let's step away from cancer for a minute, and step into some good books:

Here are some famous first lines from books - see if you can guess which books they are from. Perhaps one of these lines will lure you into a different world? (The answers will be at the bottom of the post.)

Classics:

1. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

2. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair."

3. "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

4. "I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story."

5. "In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since."

6. "You better not never tell nobody but God."

7. "The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. "

8. "When Mr Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton."

9. "Call me Ishmael."

10. "This is the story of what a Woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve."


Modern novels...

1. "Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much."

2. "I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975."

3. "Who is John Gault?"

4. "Once upon a time there was a pair of pants."

5. "The year that Buttercup was born, the most beautiful woman in the world was a French scullery maid named Annette."

6. "There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

7. "He began his new life standing up, surrounded by cold darkness and stale, dusty air."

8. "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book."

I've read almost all of these books, and I can tell you right now... if you immerse yourself in one of these works of literature, you'll forget your troubles for awhile.

"Some books leave us free and some books make us free." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

ANSWERS

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
3. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
4. Ethan Fromme by Edith Wharton
5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane
8. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
9. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
10. The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
2. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
3. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
4. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
5. The Princess Bride by William Goldman
6. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
7. The Maze Runner by James Dashner
8. A Series of Unfortunate Events - Book the First: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket