My Favorite Epigraphs (4)

I'm back with more epigraphs today! It should be no surprise to anyone that I love epigraphs as this is my fourth post of them. I haven't read all of these yet, but I plan to soon.

Epigraphs 1
Epigraphs 2
Epigraphs 3

The Dream Thieves 

"What if you slept

And what if

In your sleep

You dreamed

And what if

In your dream

You went to heaven 

And there plucked a strange and beautiful flower

And what if 

When you awoke

You had the flower in your hand

Ah, what then?"

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Rose Under Fire 

To a Young Poet

"Time cannot break the bird's wings from the bird,

Bird and wing together

Go down, one feather.

No thing that ever flew 

Not the lark, not you,

Can die as others do."

-Edna St. Vincent Millay

Lair of Dreams

"I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep."

-Walt Whitman  

Dangerous Girls 

"The truth is never pure and rarely simple."

-Oscar Wilde 

My Favorite Epigraphs (3)

Epigraphs are something that I have started to really pay attention to and look for in my books over the past year or so. I can get really emotional over a really poignant epigraph! I've already shared some of my favorites in the past, but as I have discovered some more recently, I thought I would put together another post of them.
Let me know one of your favorite epigraphs down below!

Read my favorite Epigraphs Part 1
Read my favorite Epigraphs Part 2

Just One Day, Gayle Forman

"All the world's a stage, 

And all the men and women merely players: 

They have their exits and their entrances; 

And one man in his time plays many parts...."

- As You Like It, William Shakespeare 

Just One Year, Gayle Forman

"When I was home, I was in a better place: 

but travelers must be content." 

- As You Like It, William Shakespeare 

Paper Towns, John Green

"People say friends don't destroy one another.

What do they know about friends?"

- 'Game Shows Touch our Lives' The Mountain Goats 

The Impossible Knife of Memory, Laurie Halse Anderson

"-These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. Memory fingers in their hair of murders..."

- "Mental Cases", Wilfred Owen  

Belle Epoque, Elizabeth Ross 

"There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that reflects it."

- Edith Wharton  

Let me know your favorite epigraph! I am always on the look-out for great epigraphs. 

My Favorite Epigraphs: Part Two

A few months ago I posted My favorite Epigraphs: Part One and here I am again today with part two. I have really been appreciating epigraphs and the thought that authors put into them lately, and I already have a part three planned as well!

Giovanni's Room, James Baldwin

" I am man; I suffered, I was there."

-Walt Whitman  

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood

"And When Rachel saw that she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister; and said unto Jacob, Give me children or else I shall die.

And Jacob's anger was kindled against Rachel; and he said, Am I in God's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruits of the womb?

And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her."

-Genesis 30:1-3

"In the dessert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones."

-Sufi proverb  

  

The End of the Affair Graham Green.

"Man has places in his heart which do not yet exist, and into them enters suffering in order that they may have existence." 

-Leon Bloy 

Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Already with thee! tender is the night... But here there is not light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurvous glooms and winding mossy ways."

-Ode to a Nightingale 

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald 

"Experience is the name so many people give to their mistakes."

-Oscar Wilde  

My Favorite Epigraphs: Part One

What is an epigraph, you ask. An Epigraph is a short quote that precedes a piece of literature and is intended to suggest the theme of the piece, it can also be a short inscription on a statue or building, but today I'm only concerned with the literary definition.

I've always loved epigraphs and when I find one that fits perfectly with the story, I tend to get a little emotional. (Ya I know, I'm a weird literature geek) The other day I came across one epigraph that made me stop right in my tracks and think for a good ten minutes, it of course made me a little emotional as well, but that epigraph inspired this post. Today I'll share five of my favorite epigraphs and as I discover more, I will share them in following posts.

I will start with the epigraph I spoke of earlier.

Epigraph for Mary Shelley's Frankenstein 

"Did I request thee,

Maker, from my clay

To mould me man?

Did I solicit thee

From Darkness to

Promote me?"

-Paradise Lost


Epigraph for Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

"If they give you ruled paper, write the other way"

- Juan Ramon Jimenez



Epigraph for Graham Green's The Quiet American 

"This is the patent age of new inventions

For killing bodies, and for saving souls,

All propagated with the best intentions."

- Lord Byron






Epigraph for Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird

"Lawyers, I suppose, were children once"

-Charles Lamb

Epigraph for Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises 

"You are all a lost generation."

-Gertrude Stein