Today is my birthday. I keep joking with people that I’m “almost 30,” which is true but also somehow terrifying. I definitely thought I would be somewhere else at this point in my life. However, you can only play with the cards you’re dealt. In honor of my birthday, and a way to celebrate with things that I really enjoy, I’m sharing some of my favorite book quotes.

If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

We accept the love we think we deserve.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who’ll decide where to go…

Oh, The Places You’ll Go!

It was all very well to be ambitious, but ambition should not kill the nice qualities in you.

Ballet Shoes

I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held. Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.

The Night Circus

You are everything that brings you joy, lights you up, turns you on, holds your attention, fills your heart, cracks you up, makes you weep, calms you down, enlists your talents, inspires you to grow…

It’s all right there, inside yourself, everything you need to know about how to be the perfect expression of you. Trust your own gut, your own feelings, your own joy, above all else.

You Are A Badass Every Day

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

Les Miserables

No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.

The Scarlet Letter

For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.

The Magician’s Nephew

It’s a very difficult era in which to be a person, just a real, actual person, instead of a collection of personality traits selected from an endless automat of characters.

Gone Girl

Time is the longest distance between two places.

The Glass Menagerie

Sometimes I can feel my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

If I’ve learned anything from writing this blog post, always mark the quotes and passages that you enjoy! I’m pretty good about doing it in nonfiction books, but terribly awful at marking other book quotes!

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