For those who may not know, 21 is pretty significant in America. You can legally drink alcohol. It kind of solidifies your status as an adult. I certainly still don’t feel like an adult still but it’s nice to know that others might see me as more mature now. I decided that since I’m 21, I will share with all of you 21 quotes from and about books and writing that have inspired me through the years. I hope some of these inspire you too.

“…I like simple things, books, being alone, or with somebody who understands.” – Daphne du Maurier

“I am half agony, half hope.” – Jane Austen

“And here you are living, despite it all.” – Rupi Kaur

“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” – Natalie Goldberg

“I lived in books more than I lived anywhere else.” – Neil Gaiman

“The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt.” – Sylvia Plath

“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly, sometimes it’s like drilling a rock then blasting it out with charges.” – Ernest Hemingway

“Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve.” – JK Rowling

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” – Edgar Allan Poe

“A writer is someone who has taught their mind to misbehave.” – Oscar Wild

“We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep.” – William Shakespeare

“I have always imagined that paradise will be some kind of library.” – Jorge Luis Borges

“I have put my heart and soul into my work and lost my mind in the process.” – Vincent Van Gogh

“That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

“My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.” – John Green

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.” – Donna Tartt

“To a great mind, nothing is little.” – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.” – JK Rowling

“Never forget who you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor and it can never be used against you.” George RR Martin

“I picked up a pen. I wrote my own deliverance.” Lin-Manuel Miranda

“She reads books as one would breathe air, to fill up and live.” – Annie Dillard