Sam Reviews "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte

I genuinely enjoyed this story so much more than I ever could have anticipated.  There was a slight struggle with dialect and language since this was written so long ago, but once you're in the thick of the story it's easy to get past all of that.  I don't really imagine I will reread this very often but I can recommend it to anyone who's considered reading it.

"I know, by instinct, his reserve springs from an aversion to showy displays of feeling - to manifestations of mutual kindliness.  He'll love and hate equally under cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again."

"Many could not imagine the existence of happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as you spend."

"I don't remember another [terrible night] that I can at all compare with it since I was capable of suffering."

"Terror made me cruel."

"I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town.  A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself."

"It is strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!"

"[She] grumbled herself calm."

"[She] was to mischievous and wayward for a favorite [child]."

"[His words] made her cry, at first; and then, being repulsed continually hardened her, and she laughed if I told her to be sorry for her faults and beg to be forgiven."

"'Why canst thou not always be a good lass, Cathy?'
"'Why cannot you always be a good man, Father?'"

"The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on; no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did."

"They were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them - to everybody on earth."

"Proud people make sorrows for themselves."

"It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive."

"Let me alone, and I'll plan [my revenge] out; while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain."

"A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o' clock, runs the chance of leaving the other half undone."

"She was full of ambition, and led her to adopt a double character without exactly trying to deceive anyone."

"Sit down; you shall not leave me in that temper.  I should be miserable all night, and I won't be miserable for you!"

"I love him because he's more myself than I am.  Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightening, or frost from fire."

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger; I should not seem a part of it."

"My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods:  time will change it; I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees.  My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary."

"I kissed Hateton goodbye; and since then he has been a stranger, and it's very queer to think it, but I've no doubt he has completely forgotten about Ellen Dean, and that be was ever more than all the world to her, and she to him!"

"Well, we must be for ourselves in the long run; the mild and generous are only more justly selfish than the domineering; and it ended when circumstances caused each to feel that the one's interest was not the chief consideration in the other's thoughts."

"My soul will be on that hilltop before you lay hands on me again.  I don't want you, Edgar, I'm past wanting you.  Return to your books. I'm glad you possess a consolation, for all you had in me is gone."

"Any relic of the dead is precious, if they were valued living."

"She abandoned them under a delusion, picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion.  I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character, and acting on the false impressions she cherished."

"Would you like to live with your soul in the grave."

"It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands.  Kiss me again and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me.  I love my murderer - but yours! How can I?"

"Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends - they wound those who resort to them, worse than their enemies."

"She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days.  It's a pity she could not be content."

"Good words.  But deeds must prove it also; and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear."

Sam Reviews "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini

I loved this story so much more than I thought I would.  I put off reading this because I assumed I would be bored by the unfamiliar culture and traditions.  But, honestly this is just a well written and interesting story that just so happens to mention and explain Afghanistan culture.  I found myself addicted to this story and I was disappointed on days I couldn't find time to continue it.  I've had a few friends tell me that A Thousand Splendid Suns is better so I'm so excited to read that story soon cuz I loved this one so much.

"It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it.  Because the past claws its way out."

"There is a way to be good again."

"The problem, of course, was that Baba saw the world in black and white.  And he got to decide what was black and what was white.  You can't love a person who lives that way without fearing him too.  Maybe even hating him a little."

"There is only one sin, only one.  And that is theft.  Every other sin is a variation of theft.  When you kill a man, you steal a life.  You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father.  When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth.  When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness."

"Children aren't coloring books.  You don't get to fill them in with your favorite colors."

"A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything."

"Didn't all fathers in their secret hearts harbor a desire to kill their sons?"

"To this day, I find it hard to gaze directly at people who mean every word they say."

"That's the thing about people who mean everything they say.  They think everyone else does too."

"Coming close wasn't the same as winning, was it? ... Winners won and everyone else just went home."

"Better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie."

"He was so goddamn pure, you always felt like a phony around him."

"How could I be such an open book to him when, half the time, I had no idea what was milling around in his head?  I was the one who went to school, the one who could read, write. I was the smart one.  Hassan couldn't read a first-grade textbook but he'd read me plenty.  That was a little unsettling, but also sort of comfortable to have someone who always knew what you needed."

"It was [her] and me against the world.  And I'll tell you this: In the end, the world always wins."

"There is no shame in war."

"Sad stories make good books."

"I envied her.  Her secret was out.  Spoken.  Dealt with."

"Every woman needed a husband.  Even if he did silence the song in her."

"A big part of the reason I didn't care about [her] past was that I had one of my own.  I knew all about regret."

"It wasn't meant to be.  Or, maybe, it was meant not to be."

"Time can be a greedy thing - sometimes it steals all the details for itself."

"I knew it was better to be miserable than rude."

"How seamless love seemed and then came trouble."  - Hafez

"The desert weed lives on, but the flower of spring blooms and wilts."

"What was the old saying about the bad penny? My past was like that, always turning up."

"A man who has no conscience, no goodness, does not suffer."

"I believe true redemption is when guilt leads to good."

"Perspective was a luxury when your head was constantly buzzing with a swarm of demons."

"Lifting him from the certainty of turmoil and dropping him in a turmoil of uncertainty."

"Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end, crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis."

"I wondered if that was how forgiveness budded, not with the fanfare if epiphany, but with pain gathering its things, packing up, and slipping away unannounced in the middle of the night."

Sam Reviews "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger

Mostly I'm just confused.  The story wasn't bad, though I did find the writing style challenging at times.  The writing style honestly reminded me of American Psycho which is another book I didn't necessarily love.   I'm so curious why this is considered such a classic and necessary part of do many literature curriculums.

"What I was really hanging around for, I was trying to feel some kind of a good-by. I mean I've left schools and places I didn't even know I was leaving them. I hate that. I don't care if it's a sad good-by or a bad good-by, but when I leave a place I like to know I'm leaving it. If you don't, you feel even worse."

I guess "giving a girl the time" used to be a euphemism for sex.

"Almost everytime somebody gives me a present, it ends up making me sad."

"Sensitive. That killed me. That guy Morrow was about as sensitive as a goddam toilet seat."

"I gave her a good look. She didn't look like any dope to me. She looked like she might have a pretty damn good idea what a bastard she was the mother of. But you can't always tell--with somebody's mother, I mean. Mothers are all slightly insane."

"I had her glued to her seat. You take somebody's mother, all they want to hear about is what a hot-shot their son is."

"That's the thing about girls.  Every time they do something pretty even if they're not much to look at, or even if they're sort of stupid, you fall half in love with them, and then you never know where the hell you are."

"I never did find out what the hell was the matter.  Some girls you practically never find out what's the matter."

"New York's terrible when somebody laughs on the street very late at night.  You can hear it for miles.  It makes you feel so lonesome and depressed."

"The thing is, it's really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs - if yours are really good ones and theirs aren't.  You think if they're intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don't give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do."

"[Money] always ends up making you blue as hell."

"All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to."