Univ is celebrating World Book Day 2019, taking place on 7 March, by sharing some of our College family’s favourite literary quotes. As Neil Gaiman put it, “A book is a dream you hold in your hands.” And so, read (or dream) on…

“In the beginning the universe was created. This made a lot of people very angry and has widely regarded as a bad move.”
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams – Phoebe Hobbs (2015, Biochemistry)

“It’s never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn’t hurt you.”
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee – Reija Fanous, Finance Bursar’s Assistant

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert – Michael Jones (2016, Russian and Czech with Slovak)

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald – Justin Bowyer, Digital Communications Manager

“Society, as we have constituted it, will have no place for me, has none to offer; but Nature, whose sweet rains fall on unjust and just alike, will have clefts in the rocks where I may hide, and secret valleys in whose silence I may weep undisturbed. She will hang the night with stars so that I may walk abroad in the darkness without stumbling, and send the wind over my footprints so that none may track me to my hurt: she will cleanse me in great waters, and with bitter herbs make me whole.”
De Profundis by Oscar Wilde – Elizabeth Adams, College Librarian

“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.”
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett – Sara Dewsbery, Communications Officer

“If they are well cleaned out, volcanoes burn slowly and steadily, without any eruptions. Volcanic eruptions are like fires in a chimney.
On our earth we are obviously much too small to clean out our volcanoes. That is why they bring no end of trouble upon us.”
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry – Tamsin Mather, Professor of Earth Sciences

“Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times if one only remembers to turn on the light”
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by JK Rowling – Emma Franklin (2017, Jurisprudence)

“Most really pretty girls have pretty ugly feet, and so does Mindy Metalman.”
The Broom of the System by David Foster Wallace – Matthew Hardy, (2018, English)

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. – Dr Laura Varnam, Lecturer in English Literature.

Gregory: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”
The Adventure of Silver Blaze, published in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – Dr Andrew Bell, Senior Tutor

“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
What airs in dress an’ gait wad lea’e us,
An’ ev’n devotion!”
To a Louse by Robert Burns – Bill Allan, Tutor in Classics

“Manuscripts don’t burn.”
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, – Dr Polly Jones, Schrecker-Barbour Fellow, Associate Professor in Russian

“Learning and study makes a young man thinking, attentive, industrious, confident and wary; an old man cheerful, and resolved. ’Tis an ornament in prosperity, a refuge in adversity; an entertainment at home, a companion abroad: it cheers in solitude and prison; it moderates in the height of fortune, and upon the throne.”
Of Education, especially of Young Gentlemen (3rd edition, Oxford, 1677) by Obadiah Walker (Master of Univ 1676-89) – Robin Darwall-Smith, Archivist.

“Why is it that people who wouldn’t dream of stealing anything else think it’s perfectly all right to steal books?”
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff – Ariane Laurent-Smith, Communications Assistant

“Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it.”
Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery. – Jessica Woodward, Assistant Librarian

Find out more about World Book Day at worldbookday.com 

Published: 7 March 2019

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