Nothing Beats a Book

 “You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.”

—Lloyd Jones, Mister Pip

I fell in love with this book while doing an English Assignment in Secondary School. Readers are taken away to an island where we are caught in a war between the rebels and redskins. Clearly the quote isn't about war. This is because we are brought to a little town where there is a school Mr. Watts teaches at (the only white man there). And this is where reading comes in. He introduces to the young kids, Great Expectations. These children never knew about fictional stories on paper. I am not doing any justice at all trying to explain the story. It is fantastic! A young girl falling in love with a fictional character.

Any book readers have had this problem. That’s why I loved this story so much (especially at the time changing it up from all my Nicholas Sparks stories).  The story explained at some points how one falls in love with a story. How it’s an escape just for a few hours to another land where we don’t have to move an inch.

This quote explains it all. Not for every book…but a person in love with the story just falls into it flying through the words. We can’t put it down to sleep, nor do our actual tasks we had meant to. Bombs could be going off or screaming kids, but all of that is tuned out by the tunes of the story. The ocean waves by an island, the still night as an animal crosses the dry ground...you get my point.

You’re just kidding yourself if you only read a book by the “assigned chapters” for school. Who has ever heard of such a thing if you are actually reading the story? Page after page flies by. It’s like watching a movie where someone shoots the main character, BUT the shooter isn't shown and then POOF you’re done the movie tonight you can watch another chapter tomorrow. You watched the entire movie didn't you? Exactly, this is the same with books.

The only time when I notice something is happening around me is when it gets too dark to read and I have to turn on a lap.

All We Need Is Love

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and this has always been enough.”

                —Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

Nicholas Sparks is one of my favourite authors. I am sure I will post a few more quotes from his novels throughout the term. I can’t help but read the classic romance novels. However, this one has to be one of my all-time favourite Nicholas Sparks quotes. Especially from The Notebook (also one of my favourite movies with the ravishing Ryan Gosling).

I love how true this quote is, even if it’s a little cheesy to just “top the cake” for the typical romance people. But really how special are each of us? We all get told we’re special and unique when we’re little, but most of us don’t become the famous rockstar, actor, or model. We all aren’t Batman making a name for ourselves by saving a city. We are all common people with a common life. We eat, sleep, live and die. How do we get that monument in such a sort time? Sure you can have a bucketlist like I do to make goals, but when you die how many people are going to remember you?

‘Noah’—the main character in The Notebook—is right, at least to me. You can make the most of your life and climb Mount Everest, but you aren’t going to have a building named after you. When you come home and curl up beside the one you love that is enough. Pure happiness to Noah.

It may be silly. But you answer this: How many times do you walk past grave stones, read the names, move on, and then forget the name? Do you know their life story? Have you ever heard of them before? The answer is probably no isn’t it?

Trust me, I’m not saying your life isn’t anything special. You’re just not Martin Luther King Jr. who made a name for himself, and gets noticed every year and every day in history class. To me nothing is better then when I’ll be old and grey and come home to the love of my life and share my “common thoughts and life” with him. If I can find someone who loves me as much as I love them I’ll be happy.

So many people get divorced, stay alone and don’t find love. When they die do they have the satisfaction of loving someone with all their heart and soul? Maybe I’m the one whose read to many love novels (…chivalry can go a very long way). I do know that these stories are fictional. Maybe they are too high of an expectation when I’m older. But a girl can dream.