A Selection of Bookish Words | quotes + poetry | feat. old photos of mine | Part One

Hello agin, dear readers. I am here today to share a handful of my favorite bookish quotes/excerpts and pieces of poetry. After reading a recent post of the lovely Emily Charlotte, I realized how long overdue it was for me to actually share some words that I found memorable.

As for the lovely black and white photos I am sharing: in all honesty it has been quite some time since I last picked up the camera and taken a picture that was not of my precious littlest sibling. As I prepared this post, I realized that I have never shared any black and white versions of my flower photography, so here I am, sharing pictures that I took months ago and wishing for warm, spring-like weather.


Rafa blinks, blocking the painful memories, hiding his collapsed heart beneath a smile.

“Buenos días, señora. How may I help you?” he asks the customer.

“Blood.”

“Sí, señora.”

Give them their blood.

For more than twenty years, Spain has given blood. And sometimes Rafa wonders – what is left to give.

Fountains of Silence – Ruta Sepetys

[Nicholas] gestures to Daniel’s camera and then to the landscape. Illuminated fan palms cast fingered shadows that creep toward a glistening fountain. But manicured trees don’t interest Daniel. People do. They are living, breathing landscapes. When captured at the right moment, truth reveals itself to the camera.

Fountains of Silence – Ruta Sepetys

She flipped open the cover of Treasure Island again, barely able to stop from reaching for the nub of pencil in her pocket.

So many times had she tried to write down that story. Too many to count. But it was never right. She could never capture the cadence of her mother’s voice, the way she would drop it to a whisper in one moment and then imitate the crashing of a wave in the next.

Maybe it was the blank page’s fault that the words were never right.

To Treasure an Heiress – Roseanna M. White

‘You thought I was a villain?” Now his arms fell stupidly to his side. “An actual villain?

Her expression twisted. “Well…”

“And the best name you could come up with was the Nefarious Marquess of SheriDoom?” He shook his head, nearly ruining his performance with a grin. “Really, Beth. I expect better from you. It doesn’t even alliterate. Shouldn’t I have been the Shadowy SheriDoom? Or Shifty? Shameless? Sh…piteful?”

To Treasure an Heiress – Roseanna M. White

The Creator spoke the first word, and all that lived on the earth awoke and stretched and opened their mouths and minds to say the word.

Through many patterns of stars, they all spoke to one another, the wind to the hawk, the snail to the stone, the frog to the reads. But after many turnings and many deaths, the languages were forgotten.

Yet the sun still moves up and down, and the stars still shift in the sky, and as long as there are movement and harmony, there are words.

Goose Girl – Shannon Hale

She could not think…the wind from her running grabbed at her ears like a child anxious to tell secrets.

She strained to understand, but it was just noise, like the chattering of the geese.

Goose Girl – Shannon Hale

If this is a shipwreck, I’d wish I’d crashed before. Is it a shipwreck if you choose it?

Safe. Silent. Alone on my island. If this is paradise, then let me have it all.

“Enough {1}” – Cathedral by Maya Joelle

and now, my darling, you have grown.

you carry the weight of years of memories and emotions

and sometimes it’s too much.

you want to drop the memories, but you can’t.

“To The Broken Ones” – Cathedral by Maya Joelle

Do any of these excerpts/quotes stand out to you? Have you read any of these books?

11 thoughts on “A Selection of Bookish Words | quotes + poetry | feat. old photos of mine | Part One”

  1. Your take on this was so lovely, Esmeralda! The pictures were so beautiful in black and white, especially those two tulips! I have to say that the first quote from A Fountain of Silence stood out the most. I’ve read some of Ruta Septey’s books, but not that one. Goose Girl also sounds interesting – I love the image of the wind ‘grabbing at her ears like a child anxious to tell secrets’.

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      1. I’ve read Salt to the Sea and Between Shades of Grey. STTS’s ending absolutely floored me – I was *so* close to crying! Good to hear! I’m looking forwards to reading more of her work.

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  2. Goodness, this post was absolutely beautiful. Love the quotes. Your photography is amazing as always… the choice of b+w really highlights the lovely small details and layers in the photographs, especially in the first one! 🤩

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