How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1

This video is the first in an online miniseries done by John Green on English Literature. He talks about why we read and how we read. Personally, I think John Green has a fascinating way of phrasing things and getting his point across. I've noticed with a lot of his videos that he rambles on but it's not nonsense, most of the things he says are significant in some way or another.

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once.”

"I'm in love with you, and I'm not in the business of denying myself the simple pleasure of saying true things. I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you.” 

 -Augustus Waters, The Fault In Our Stars

Augustus Waters is a character in John Green's book The Fault In Our Stars. He is a 17 year old cancer survivor who befriends and falls in love with Hazel Grace, the main character and fellow cancer patient.  

The Girl Who Waited

"And do one more thing for me: there's a little girl, waiting in a garden; she's going to wait a long while, so she is going to need a lot of hope. Go to her. Tell her a story. Tell her that, if she's patient, the days are coming that she'll never forget. Tell her she'll go to sea and fight pirates, she'll fall in love with a man who'll wait two thousand years to keep her safe. Tell her she'll give hope to the greatest painter who ever lived, and save a whale in outer space. Tell her: This is the story of Amelia Pond - and this, is how it ends."


Amelia Pond is from the TV show Doctor Who on the BBC. 

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

The idea for this blog, I suppose, is centered around having your world shattered by a piece of literature or film. Many of us have experienced this feeling that John Green's character, Hazel Grace, describes so accurately. This phenomenon is not limited to books, however. Often times a character in a film or show will have a line or monologue that is as beautifully written (and spoken) as any brilliant piece of literature. 

As an English Lit major, I have an endless fascination with beautifully crafted words. The main point of this blog is to archive those quotes I come across in books or movies that simply must be remembered and also the character the quote was said by/about. 

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby