The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’”

(The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, Chapter 8)

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

“You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you.”

(A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle)

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

“Every night when I go to bed I think, 'In the morning I will wake up in my own house and things will be back the way they were.' It hasn’t happened this morning, either."

(The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Chapter 31)

The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien

“You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. … I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me.”

(The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien, Book VI, Chapter 9)

Night by Elie Wiesel

“Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.”

(Night by Elie Wiesel, Section 3)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

“It is our choices, Harry, that show us what we truly are, far more than our abilities.

(Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling, Chapter 18)

Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title.

(Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Act II, Scene 2)

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

"The sea is everything. It covers seven tenths of the terrestrial globe. Its breath is pure and healthy. It is an immense desert, where man is never lonely, for he feels life stirring on all sides."

(20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne, Chapter 10)

Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

"No more shall ye behold such sights of woe, deeds I have suffered and myself have wrought; henceforward quenched in darkness shall ye see those ye should ne'er have seen; now blind to those whom, when I saw, I vainly yearned to know."

(Oedipus Rex by Sophocles)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

"His friends were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object."

(The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Chapter 1)