Why not do something a little bit different once in a while? When I read a book, I usually like to mark or underline my favourite, most profound and heartfelt quotes. Today I would like to share a collection of these quotes from the novel “Before I Die” (Jenny Downham) and my thoughts on them. The ones in blue are about life in general and the pink ones are about love. These are the ones I selected:
I love these kind of stories which aren’t just sad “just because”, but also show significant parts of human life. Confronting the topics that many people would rather ignore or not talk about is one of the courageous choices an author or anyone at all can make. There is this quote I saw in a video essay on “The Lovely Bones” which describes the book in a very fitting way: “It reflects a moving passionate interest in and love for ordinary life at its most wonderful, and most awful, even at its most mundane” (Quality Culture). Both Downham and Sebold have the ability to give beautiful meaning to even the simplest of moments or events. Even though the protagonist Susie Salmon in Alice Sebolds book is murdered and the story evokes a different kind of dread and unease in the reader, both books are great at capturing life and death as well as their intersections. They both show how wonderful life can be by also confronting what it’s really like to die. When you read them, you of course feel sad about what happens (it’s inevitable :D), but you also develop a deep sense of gratitude; gratitude for your existence and that you get to live this intricate and also wonderful life.
I think my favourite quote definitely is the eigth one: “There are signs everywhere. Some you make, some come to you”. It shows to me that we aren’t alone as we think we are. Apart from what humans are now able to discover in science, I also like to believe that the universe is responding to the energy we are putting out. When we have doubts, there come signs our way, that show us what could be possible or what we need to see. That can be a particular song on the radio, a slogan on someone’s shirt or an advice of someone close to you that touches you at the exact right moment.
That’s all for today. Let me know what was your favourite quote! You can also share one from another book which also has a similar topic. Thank you for reading!
This is the movie adaptation to the book, starring Dakota Fanning and Jeremy Irvine: “Now Is Good” (2012).
My sources:
– Quality Culture. (2020). The Lovely Bones Is Scarier Than We Remember | Video Essay. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck47oL6vMJY> [Accessed 13 August 2022].
– Downham, J. (2007). Before I die. New York: Random House/Listening Library, pp.169 – 344.
The Deeper Meaning 