Blog Posts by Subject: Quotations

Wise, funny, sad, and hopeful, here are some of our favorite Flannery O'Connor quotes.

The Rose Society is the dark and fascinating sequel to The Young Elites. Here are my favorite quotes from the book.

To commemorate Emma and one of our favorite book-to-film retellings, we're matching moments from Clueless to their counterparts in Jane Austen's novel, translating from valley girl to nineteenth century English. Why? Because, as Cher would say, "Duh, it's like a famous quote!"

We share one thing in common with some of our favorite characters from literature: a love of reading. Here are a few of our favorites. Who are yours?

I have finally completed year two of my Harry Potter journey. Here are some of my favorite quotes from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling:

I recently started reading the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling for the first time! Here are some of my favorite quotes from first book in the series.

Have a little fun with the Marches by taking our quiz, which asks you to identify which March sister said the certain quotes.

In Queen of Shadows Celaena embraces her true identity Aelin Galathynius the Queen of Terrasen. Here are some highlights from the book.

The Wrath And The Dawn is an innovative retelling of A Thousand and One Nights. Here are some of my favorite moments of the epic tale.

I love all books by Dr. Seuss. Here are a few of my favorite quotes:

While Shakespeare aligned April with youth and vitality, Eliot called it “the cruelest month.” Melville compared April to a red-cheeked dancing girl, and Millay even titled one collection Second April. Here are a few of our favorite April quotes in literature.

Women are some of our favorite writers, most intelligent voices, and incredible innovators. Women have helped us think more deeply through issues about which we're passionate, and women have made our world a better place to be human.

Austen's wry humor finds a perfect outlet in the repartee between Darcy and Elizabeth, making it one of the most quotable books of the nineteenth century.

At NYPL, we love to read. Why? you ask. Let us count the ways. Here are 13 quotes about the joy of reading that sum up how we feel about our favorite activity. So get ready to begin your next bookish conversation with, "A wise person once said..."

“Libraries were full of ideas—perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons.”

Researching a quotation can be fun, but it's not always easy and many times may require some serious digging. This post can serve as a useful starting point for anyone seeking to research a quotation or find the source of a quotation.

New Yorkers experienced two major life events in the past few weeks: a superstorm and a hotly contested presidential election. Those two events have more in common than you might think. They both stressed us out. They both left us blurry with some of the details... what happened and what didn't, what was said and what was only hearsay. What was underreported and what was blown way out of proportion.

With social media 

My hope is that this blog will serve as a useful starting point for anyone seeking or researching the origin of words and/or phrases, also called etymology. Both print-based and web-based sources are included.

Here are some web resources on word and phrase origins and a few print resources.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) The online edition of the 20-volume dictionary, access with your library 

Every November, the searches for Stanley Horowitz on Google gain momentum. Horowitz, a poet, published a tranquil 18 word poem in the November 1983 issue of Reader’s Digest magazine, page 109. Some years later the poem was posted to a list of autumn quotations on the Internet, sandwiched between poetry giants like John Keats and Robert Frost, and it has been used ubiquitously all over the web ever since.