Happy Spring!

I was under the impression that the equinox and the first day of spring were tomorrow, but I guess they're today, so, well, happy spring to everyone! Back in Boston it seems they're really noting the arrival of spring - it's practically summer weather there, and warmer than it is here. That's not supposed to happen!

I'm going to join this with my quote of the week. It's an interesting quote, not necessarily celebrating the arrival of the season, but one which puts forth a thought which has crossed my own mind.

What does winter or autumn or spring or summer know of memory. They know nothing of memory. They know that seasons pass and return. They know that they are seasons. That they are time. And they know how to affirm themselves. And they know how to impose themselves. And they know how to maintain themselves, What does autumn know of summer. What sorrows do seasons have. None hate. None love. They just pass.

• Giannina Braschi, "Pastoral or the Inquisition of Memories" from Empire of Dreams (1994)

I found it on Wikiquote, which has got to be one of my favorite websites - I am, after all, a quote enthusiast. I have expressed the point it makes before - time is no more than time, unknowing, ever-moving. There is nothing anyone can do to stop it (unless someone can procure a TARDIS, which would actually be amazing). So enjoy your time, use it as you may. And happy spring!

Quote of the Week: from three weeks ago

Okay, this is my first quote to make up for my absence. It's pretty long but it's one of my favorites ever.

"It's a paper town. I mean look at it, Q: look at all those cul-de-sacs, those streets that turn in on themselves, all the houses that were built to fall apart. All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm. All the paper kids drinking beer some bum bought for them at the paper convenience store. Everyone demented with the mania of owning things. All the things paper-thin and paper-frail. And all the people, too. I've lived here for eighteen years and I have never come across anyone who cares about anything that matters."

~ Paper Towns by John Green

There is something about this quote that makes you look at the world in a different way. The whole book, Paper Towns, has got to be one of my favorites. The characters are people just like me (albeit a bit older) and I don't have to imagine much to understand their feelings and reactions. The book makes you think, and it made me look at the world in a different way. I definitely recommend reading it, if you weren't convinced by the quote.

Quote of the Week

Okay, so this week I have been watching Doctor Who and existing. I say existing because I sort of have no life right now. Oh well. Got to fix that. But I'm watching Doctor Who.

So, I present unto you my favorite line from Doctor Who (well, one of them at least):

"Well, I was on my way to this gay gypsy Bar Mitzva for the disabled when I suddenly thought, the Third Reich's a bit rubbish, I think I'll kill the Fuhrer."
~ River Song, Let's Kill Hitler, Doctor Who

She says the above quote in front of a gun squad who are employed by the Nazis and are keen to shoot her. This is why I love River Song.

(By the way, here's a YouTube link to her saying that. I am obsessed.)

Quote of the Week

It's on time this week! I didn't forget!

This week I watched The Eleventh Hour, which is a Doctor Who episode and Matt Smith's first episode as the Doctor. There is one really awesome scene in which the Doctor is talking to an alien called the Atraxi, trying to ward them away from Earth.

"Is this world...protected? Well, you're not the first to come here, there have been so many. What you've got to ask is...what happened to them?

Hello. I'm the Doctor. Basically, run."

~The Doctor, The Eleventh Hour, Doctor Who

I think the Atraxi made the right choice by getting out of there.

Quote of The Week: I Procrastinated Edition

Yeah, what the title says. I was sitting around reading Paper Towns instead of doing any work, which I distinctly paid for last night. Oh well, it was kind of worth it. Especially because I got a quote from there! I actually have more, but this one is the only one I have so far committed to memory because it's the shortest.

"Ninjas don't splash other ninjas."

~Paper Towns by John Green

Hear that? Any ninjas out there, you better not be splashing.

Quote of the Week: I Totally Forgot Edition

Erm, ehh, ah, I...forgot. Yeah. That's precisely what happened.

So this week I got an account on Teen Ink's website. Teen Ink is a magazine for teens, by teens. You publish pieces if writing and/or art on their website, which in turn are reviewed by editors and published online. Select work is put into the print magazine.

This week I submitted a poem about being a child. As I was typing the writer's comments, I remembered something that I heard Natalie Babbitt say when I went to an author gathering:

"Children are people....[When we were children] we were not just inanimate lumps of something. We did understand. We did know."

~Natalie Babbitt

To me this is an amazingly true quote. Children don't know the amount that adults do, but they are not nothing. Sometimes people forget the amount that children do know.

Cups of tea: 37ish

I found this quote...

...and I really want to share it...

So voici, a quote within a picture. I found this on Tumblr.

"Writing: A profession for introverts who want to tell you a story but don't want to make eye contact while telling it."

~John Green

It is extremely true...when you write, you can shut yourself in your house and not see anyone for weeks. Although, that would be downright miserable.

Cups of tea: 26, going on 27

Quote of the Week

I really super extra want to put a quote from TFiOS in here, but I do not want to be spoilerful. So here is a quote that is found in TFiOS but is also found in one of John's YouTube videos. At least, something similar is found there.

*SEMI-SPOILER ALERT BUT SOMETHING LIKE THE QUOTE IS ALSO ON YOUTUBE SO WHATEVER*

"...Never was Shakespeare more wrong than when he had Cassius note, 'The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars / but in ourselves.' Easy enough to say when you're a Roman nobleman (or Shakespeare!) but there is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars."

-Peter Van Houten in The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

TFiOS was AWESOME. Read it.

Cups of tea: 26

Quote of the Week: Take 2

Occasionally, when I find quotes I really love, I put them into an email draft and never send them. I was looking through my drafts just now, to see if I could do some cleaning out, and I found a brilliant quote by my hero herself.

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all - in which case, you fail by default."

–J. K. Rowling

 Isn't it so true? I tend to beat myself up over my past mistakes, so this quote is a good one for me to remember. Hating my failures was part of what got me depressed, so coming across this back in the height of it would have been helpful.

Cups of tea: 19

Quote of the Week

I forgot! I nearly forgot! I can't believe myself! I'll give you a more carefully picked quote later this week. 

"Only as high as I reach can I grow 
Only as far as I seek can I go 
Only as deep as I look can I see
 Only as much as I dream can I be."

~Karen Ravn

I found this in our school assignment notebook, back in 6th grade when all the quotes were new. I wanted to do something with it, but I didn't get around to it until now.

Cheers, guys! One week away from home has already passed - I can't believe it!

Cups of tea: 15

Quote of the Week

I've decided to do it a day early this week, since tomorrow I won't have any time whatsoever, not to mention no internet. I've picked a few, because this week is so crazily out of the ordinary.

"Well, you know what? Life is change. There is no such thing as permanence." – My ballet teacher said this this week. He was referring to a girl who didn't want to shift her spot because it was where she always stood. But really, that's what is going on right now in my life. No permanence. Not even something long-lasting.

"As Hagrid had said, what would come, would come...and he would have to meet it when it did." – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling, page 752 (last line) of American paperback edition. This is one of my favorite Harry Potter lines ever, and that's saying a lot. It encompasses so much of what is going on right now. I don't know what is going to happen, but I'll get through it. When I first read it in fourth grade, it didn't affect me as much (I was too eager to get on to book 5), but when I rediscovered it this year, it was a little shocking, because that's exactly how I feel.

"So kiss me and smile for me / Tell me that you'll wait for me / Hold me like you'll never let me go / 'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane / Don't know when I'll be back again / Oh babe, I hate to go" – "Leaving on a Jet Plane" by John Denver. I first heard this song at Nature's Classroom two months ago, when we sang it on our last night. I can't quite describe the shock I got when listening to it, followed by sadness. I think it was one of the first times I really did register that I was leaving. And even though I do know when I'll be back (it would really be depressing if I didn't), it felt like I was hearing my own situation. It literally almost made me cry.

Realness scale: 4

Quote of the Week

I love quotes. I read them, interpret them, memorize them. So I have decided that, like my friend Yinuo was doing for a bit on her blog (http://fadingchildhood.blogspot.com/), I'm going to do a "quote of the week." One quote every Monday. Something for me to look forward to.
So. This week's quote is from Feed by M. T. Anderson. I read that a few days ago. It's something that I have been saying for awhile, which is why I like it so much.

♫ "'It makes good times even better because you know they're going to end.'"


The character who says this is Violet, a girl who is dying. It really fits what I've been posting here. If you haven't yet, I encourage you to read Feed. It's worth it. 
Now to go find more quotes.

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By the way, on a grammar note – there are three quotation marks around that quote. Two are because it is a quote; the third is for a quote within a quote (i.e. if someone is saying something). If you were in Britain, it would be reversed.