More Than a Quote

I have a blue notebook in my office that I received for Christmas in 2014, in which I write down in colorful pen whatever words touch me. I call it my Quote Book and I’m up to page 49 now. Not all the quotes are from famous people though, some are from my best friend, my teachers, myself, textbooks, or just random people who I hear talking in the halls.

Yes, this is what nerds do on perfect Sunday afternoons or on late Friday nights. I scour Goodreads looking for quotes and then I get lost in the ocean of humanity’s mind just like I get lost in the encyclopedia. Ralph Waldo Emerson once penned “Words are finite organs of the infinite mind” and I want to douse myself in other’s lively minds. I want to pour wisdom into my mind from wherever I can find it, so that I can have that wisdom while I live my life.

And so if I get lost on Goodreads then that just means that I am getting lost in wisdom that will prepare me for living. I am being found.

I am in a constant state of losing and finding myself. I am designing and developing myself by adding to my schema the thoughts of others who have already lost and found themselves hundreds of times over.

This is why I like learning because in learning about the world and how it works or doesn’t work, I am really learning about and forming myself so that I can change the world. Muriel Rukeyser once said, “The universe is made of stories, not of atoms” and so I learn about the universe by learning about stories and the people who tell them.

If you can’t tell already this blog post is gonna be loaded with quotes 🙂 If you are asking yourself why a teenage girl is writing a blog post about quotes when most girls her age are either taking duck-face selfies on snapchat, let John Green answer your question, “Nerd life is just so much better than regular life.” And let me remind you, you are reading this nerdy blog post so you might be included in that “nerd life”. Plus, you have hope for humanity.

Anyway, back to the Quote Book, on the inside front cover I have written a quote by John Green “Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting.” So what does my Quote Book say about me?

Well, on surface level, I at first only wrote down quotes from Superhero movies and comicbooks then branched out to other types of quotes. I was on a Mark Twain kick for a while (thanks, Goodreads!) and now my quote-obsession is John Green.

On a deeper level, just from that information of who I quote (comicbooks, Mark Twain, John Green), a statement is made about me. I do not care about who said the words; I care about what the words say to me.

I like to play a game where I read a quote from my book and a friend has to guess who said it: a professional writer, a normal person, or a comicbook. Generally they are surprised by who said it, and so the speaker of the words holds little power over the words themselves. Just because comicbooks has fist fights and aliens, doesn’t mean that they also have heart and poetry. “No acknowledgement or any amount of money can return integrity once it is spent” is a quote from One Month to Live #5, which was a comicbook  produced by Marvel Comics in 2010.

But what is my favorite quote? My favorite quote is my mantra, my motto, my manifesto that was written two thousand years ago; it is my rallying cry when I do not want to move forward; it is what is written on my heart and what I want to be written on my every action. My favorite quote says everything I want it to say about me and what I want to say. “But anyone who is not aware that he is doing wrong will be punished only lightly. Much is required from those to whom much is given, for their responsibility is greater” Luke 12:48.  I have a great purpose to accomplish and I will fulfill my potential with every breath I take because that is why I breathe. My favorite quote tells me the meaning of my own life and what I should do with it.

Plus, my favorite Bible verse is oddly similar to my favorite comicbook quote, “With great power there must also come great responsibility” from Amazing Fantasy #15. But this is a case where authorship is everything because I want the words I live by to mean more than words. Although I love Stan Lee, I have so much more assurance in the truth of words spoken by Jesus Christ, Creator and Savior of the Universe.

Ossie Davis said, “Any form of art is a form of power; it has impact, it can affect change — it can not only move us, it makes us move”; I think that quotes are similar to art. Quotes necessitate action. They inspire us to move forward and encourage us to keep moving forward. Quotes tell us to live. And yet quotes are just words of other people to whom we entrust power of our belief upon. A quote — if I choose to give it power — could literally be as plain as “I walked my dog”.  A quote has power if we accept it as truth.

And so, John Green’s quote about quotes has power because I accept it as truth and will transform its words into actions. With this in mind, I think that my Quote Book is not as its name implies; rather it is a collection of words that I have granted power and have promised to take action upon. It is a compendium of thoughts I have deemed worthy to hold prestige in the ranks of my identity. The words that others declared and whispered and hoped are the ones that tell my story because they are the ones that I have chosen to tell it.

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“Keep my commands and you will live; guard my teachings as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; write them on the tablet of your heart.”

-Proverbs 7:2-3

Reading to Know You

“Could I talk to you?”

I’ve been locked up for 264-days.

The train station at Pebbleton, dark and sooty though it was, glistened in the mist.

The world might be sunny-side up today.

It was a little after midnight when Lance McKendrick left his tiny bedroom in Max Dalton’s New Jersey base and padded barefoot through the corridors and out into the base’s large garage.

I am an hourglass.

These are all the first sentences in books that are, or have been, my favorite books.

This was before I knew the characters

who I now love

this was before I knew their fears,

loves,

goals,

and failures.

This was before I meet some of my closest friends

and also people who I would never like to meet.

These words were the first judgement I made about the characters,

not their appearance, voice, or reputation.

In books,

it is so strange because I am reading to know people.

It doesn’t matter that they are made out of ink and paper

or caffeine inspired imagination.

What matter is that these people, these characters,

live and breathe in my heart.

That is were it counts.

With each word written I get to know the character

better

and better.

But their lives do not come to a stopping halt

when the last period is placed

and the finally page is turned.

They continue to live on in my heart.

That is were it counts.

“Why?”

I’m ready.

After all he had accomplished, and considering how much he had learned and how far he had come, it is a curious fact — indeed, a remarkable one — that what Nicholas wanted now, more than anything, was to get started.

And I’m leaving my gloves behind.

“He’s human,” Lance said. “And it’s about time he understood what being human really means.”

“I can’t wait to watch them try.”

 

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Books in order of lines:

Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict by Trenton Lee Stewart

Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

Hunter by Michael Carroll

Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Progress

We have told our story

in many different forms

throughout the ages

beginning in one and being transformed into another

grunts and groans of cavemen

pictures on cave walls

hand signals for hunting

places on maps

oral traditions from ages ago

playing musical bone flutes

hieroglyphics on the pyramids

Inca knots on ropes

carvings on trees

stone and chisel

writing with a stick in the dirt

writing on reeds

letters relaying currency and commerce across the sea

oil paintings

stain glass

feather pen and paper

ship logs

book translations

the Gutenberg printing press

Newspapers

Shakespearean plays

colonist journals

the piano

Enlightenment essays

the Declaration of Independence

Romantic era novels

steam boats and steam trains

Social reform and the Second Great Awakening

telegraph wires

the Pony Express

Photographs

typewriters

the Waltz

Muckrakers

telephones

the radio

Jazz

record player

motion picture

modern art

computers the size of a room

home television

the Beatniks

space travel and moon landings

telephone hot lines

personal computers

Disco

boomboxes

bag phones

Pac-Man

VCR tapes

Walkman cassette tapes

CD players

the internet

MP3 Players

cell phones

Facebook

texting

YouTube

Google Drive

iPads

Angry Birds

Snapchat

All of this progress and communication

where has it brought us

where have we brought it?

It is a part of ourselves now

It is a part of our culture now

We are what we create

and look at what we have created.

I am not saying it is right

I am saying that it is

The Words Themselves

I am currently re-reading my second favorite book.

I got a copy of it for my birthday

and I am writing all over it,

Underling phrases

Blocking off paragraphs and pages

Scrawling in the margins little notes to myself

It seems like when I do this

then I become a part of the book

and not just the book a part of me.

The book becomes personalized,

an outward sign of the impression the words have left on my heart.

So when someone else reads the words I’ve written

and the phrases I have underlined

Then they see to my heart and my mind.

The second reader trespasses on my personal

private

heart and soul.

And that’s something deeper,

sometimes,

than the words themselves.

For the Sake of

In movies

You lose the quality of the written word

the sweet, sweet literary devices

for the sake of visualization

You lose the narrative capability

for the sake of an actor’s actions

You lose the leisure and digestive qualities

for the sake of “Next scene!”

No time to stop

or you’ll miss something new

no time to ponder on something old

You lose control

for the sake of living in someone else’s rapidly expanding imagination

In novels

You lose the rawness of an action

for the sake of recording the movement

You lose the transformation of emotion

for the sake of the categorization of a feeling

You lose the flow motion

for the sake of a mis-configured reader’s imagination

You lose the purity of a glance

for the sake of qualifying it

Sometimes words can do no justice

for what only motion can

This is why life should not be lived in movies or books

but in the act of living

Movies and books can only be enjoyed

once they have a life to build upon

Parched

Her words are the Pacific, Indian and Atlantic all pooled into one and I have never been so thristy. But drinking salt water only makes one more parched. Although, in this case, that is completely fine because I still have one hundred and forty-five pages left.

Indulgy/TerrilnVA

To You Who Gave Me Writing

To you who gave me writing

To my mother who spent hours with brightly colored flashcards

taught me that a semi-circle shape was a “C”

To my grandmother who would trace letters on my back

taught me the touch of words

To my parents who wrote down in my daily journal I what I told them to write

taught me the recording power of words and that my words mattered

To my mother who on that just beginning to cool, hot summer evening in the kitchen

taught me the letters in my name

To my father who would read to me comicbooks from his childhood

taught me that I can be enthralled in compelling stories and heroic characters

To my mother who persevered against my whining in forcing me to read beginner level “Bob Books”

taught me that I can be a critic of what I read but I still have to respect it

To Miss Griffin, my kindergarten teacher, who after reading a story about ducks

taught me that “ing” means action, a verb

To Mary Pope Osborne who wrote Magic Tree House, the first books I ever read and enjoyed by myself

taught me the joy and accomplishment of reading

To Ms. Hinds, my fourth grade teacher, who gave me an assignment to give a biographical speech about someone famous

taught me how empowering public speaking can be

To Ms. Benford, my elementary school librarian, who found for me my favorite childhood author

taught me to try new genres and that “different” can bring some of best things

To Margaret Peterson Haddix who was my favorite childhood author and filled my childhood with characters and situations and words and choices

taught me how other’s writing can touch my life

To Ms. Burke, my fifth grade teacher, who gave me an assignment to write a mystery story

taught me the power and excitement of my own fiction

To Ms. Cothran, my public speaking coach, who saw potential in me and changed a shy, analytical girl to a animated girl and a lover of poetry and my own writing

taught me that my writing impacts others and that I have a voice, so use it

To Ms. Mihocko, my seventh grade teacher, who critiqued me hard

taught me that my style is not enjoyed by everyone

To Pastor Randy who gave my first chance to preach a real sermon

taught me to follow my dreams and to work for the Lord

To Ms. Conley, my freshman english teacher, who opened my eyes to the wondrous world of writing and analyzing literary devices

taught me why and how I love the written word

To WordPress who gave me a way to share my writing

taught me that others value my work and that I should take pride in it

To Economics summer test that hours upon hours spent pointless stem and response that no one will ever glance at

taught me that purpose of writing is to convey a meaningful message that will be read

***

To you who gave me writing

and to all I left out in this poem

I thank you dearly

for writing

allows me to create my world

both in fiction

and not

***

To God who created the heavens and the earth and everything in between

for giving me something to write about

To God who gave me a mind to comprehend writing and all of its glorious intricate relationships

To God who gave the world writing at its perfection, the Bible

To God who allows me to spread His Word through my words

***

To you who gave me writing

To you who gave me the power to change the world

To you who gave me the power to change my life

To you

 

Takes You to New Worlds

In third grade, an author visited my elementary school. At the time I hated reading. Our whole school gathered around him and sat criss-cross-applesauce on the cool tile gym floor. He talked about writing his famous book series and his writing process. Then he challenged us to read and write more so that we could become authors like him, if we wanted to.

Now I am expecting that you think this was my big writing epiphany. By all means it was not. Quite the opposite in fact.

The author had said what my mother and father had told me since I started reading, which was the same thing my teachers had said everyday during reading time.

“Reading books takes you to new worlds.”

The first, second, twentieth, and one hundred seventy sixth time I heard that line I believed it was false and to this day do I still believe so. I insist upon it to this day. Reading books does not take you to new worlds.

Now, anyone who knows me at all knows that I love reading. I am always reading a book if not five or six. I will read anything except for horror or heavy romance. I average about forty-five books a summer. Quite the opposite from my younger self.

But still I insist that reading does not take you to new worlds.

I read We Were Liars and yet I could never feel the sand underneath my toes on the Sinclair family beach.

I read Minders and yet I could never feel the cement streets beneath my feet as I ran.

I read The Great Gatsby and yet I could never feel how tight my feet felt in my shoes on the very hot fateful day.

I read the Shatter Me series and yet I could never feel the Persian rugs on the marble floors.

I read Anne of Green Gables and yet I could never feel the grass in the spring time.

These are just to name a few that even my toes could not tactical touch their worlds. Yet in my own world, I can recall every memory of my toes digging into the sand on summer vacations and of my toes discovering again the grass on my bare feet in the spring time.

I insist that reading does not take you to new worlds, but instead you meet new people.

I read so many books with so many characters and yet they are the ones I can recall swiftly. I can remember exactly when and where I was reading the book. I was grounded in this world, but I was talking and thinking in the manner of the characters in my head.

From the first books that got me hooked on reading A to Z Mysteries and My Side of the Mountain to the novel I just finished two hours ago No Place to Fall, no character is the same just like no person is the same or snowflake.

In books you are able to meet people in so much more of an inmate way than in reality. You know his thoughts, so vulnerable, and his past that is so much more than what is written on his face and clothes. (Pun not intended, of course!) You learn what is his driving passion and weakest downfall through out the two hundred plus pages that a quick five minute conversation could not.

I met a narcoleptic orphan genus boy in The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict that was my favorite when I was younger not because of world he took part in, but because of who he was. I learned about motivations and how people always have reasons behind their actions that may not even be the most logical ones.

I met an aspiring comicbook (sorry graphic novel) artist and writer in The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl that was my favorite a few years ago because of his creativity and passion for superheroes that I formed a connection with. His world was forgettable, but he wasn’t.

I met a talented, tortured, and tormented slave in The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing Traitor to the Nation Volume 1: The Pox Party who taught me about the cruelty of humanity, if I did not already know. I learned what freedom truly meant.

I met a super-powered broken fighting girl in the Shatter Me series that is my current favorite. I have never connected so deeply with a character, a person, like her before. I have never experienced a writing style like Mafi’s before because writing is truly an experience.

That is another problem with what the author said, “Reading books takes you to new worlds.” I am not taken anywhere. I meet new people and experience new writing styles.

Reading is a journey, from the first glance at the spine of the book to the last punctuation mark. Along the journey you meet friends and quite possibly enemies, but they are people all the same. That’s what they should have said to my little third grader self.

Pixabay/user:Comfreak

 

More Than A Kelly Clarkson Song

Stronger by Michael Carroll took the Kelly Clarkson song ‘Stronger’ to the next level. Stronger has as much action as in a comicbook, and as much emotion as pages can handle. Written four years ago, Carroll links his two series together The New Heroes and Superhuman in a excellent tie-in. The protagonist, Brawn, is a thirteen foot tall, blue hairless monster, or so everyone thinks.

 

Flipping between two elegantly constructed and heart wrenching storylines, the readers are in Brawn’s mind at pivotal years of his life. Starting when Brawn is twelve years old, scared and imprisoned; betrayal closing in on him more than the walls. In the other timeline where all superpowers are eliminated, Brawn is protecting his fellow inmates in a mining prison. Brawn spends most of his excuse for a life in prison because the world cannot accept him or he is on the run from those who wish to use him for their own cause.

 

From  the many novels that I have held close to my heart, I have never read a masterpiece this agonizingly beautiful. My heart was broken and mended in the characters and in the writing style Carroll artfully creates. Carroll’s use of writing devices and plot twists put any other storyteller to shame, making him my favorite author. I trust Brawn in a deeper and more intimate way than I have with any other character before. Stronger is more than just exercise of imagination, but a true test of what the human spirit is capable of, even if it takes a superhuman to realize that.

 

If giant blue anti-heroes and mis-judged evil masterminds are not your forte, then read it for a crushing example of human nature. Though this book might seem like it is written for young adults; however, anyone with a heart should read it. Carroll took me into a new universe that I do not want to live in, but visit occasionally. I met new friends that intrigued me as well causing me cower, making Stronger my favorite novel of all time.

 

ON or OFF

It’s like I have an ON and Off button

Either I am full on and it just comes to me

Or I don’t feel like creating a single string of words

When I read I have no motivation to write whatsoever

Yes, I know that it is the opposite for most people

but I know the characters

I study the writer’s style

And creating my own words do not seem appealing to me

When I read a novel,

it’s like a forced writer’s block

But when I only write

I forgo all the exhilarating people

living in the pages tightly shoved on my bookshelf.

I started a book

and now reading is the only thing I want to do.

Not because it is so good

(which it is, I love the writing style!)

but because I have prolonged my thirst

for a person’s life played out in a few hundred pages

I look at the world and my thoughts around me

and have an urge to make sense of them

through words artfully created

But when my eyes absorb the words

of thoughts and emotions of characters

I look to them

and not my own

leaving me to have no need to sort through them.

Oh, the joys of books

but the heartbreaks of not writing!

It’s like I have an ON and Off button

Pixabay/Unsplash