lizzy and mr. darcy

have you ever had this feeling when you read a book that you really like... and you wanna keep reading it because you're so excited and thrilled to know the what's gonna happen next *even if you have watched it in a movie already*? yet at the same time, you dread that the pages are going by so fast, there's just few of them left so you wanna stop and you wished that the pages would not end...

that's how i felt while reading jane austen's pride and prejudice.

i'm so happy and very satisfied after reading the book itself. crazy enough, i watched the movie immediately that night after reading it. recognizing the dialogues in the book being spoken by the characters made it so real, especially the part when lady catherine de bourgh confronted elizabeth. mrs. bennet is even funnier in the book, and mr. darcy's confessions of love for lizzy is so heartwarming! i'm so in love with him! hahaha!

here are my fave quotes in the book:

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us. - Mary, Chapter 5

"Really, Mr. Collins," cried Elizabeth with some warmth, "you puzzle me exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as to convince you of its being one." - Chapter 19

"An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do." - Mr. Bennet, Chapter 20 <-- this really made me laugh while i was in the train!

She was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to inquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an inquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began: "In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you." <-- super kilig moment!

"I cannot fix on the hour, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun." - Mr. Darcy

a matter of no consequence

i have this notion, while i was reading 'the little prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, that the book would be somewhat shallow and probably be categorized as a children's book. but after reading it, i couldn't help but put it in my 'to-reread' list. here are my fave quotes... i will leave them for your own inspiration :)
Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.i think most of us is struck by this truth: once we become adults, we forget that we were once kids and loose our imagination... that's why everything becomes very complicated.
"One must command from each what each can perform, the king went on. "Authority is based first of all upon reason. If you command your subjects to jump into the ocean, there will be a revolution. I am entitled to command obedience because my orders are reasonable.", said the King. " Then my sunset?" insisted the little prince, who never let go of a question once he had asked it. "You shall have your sunset. I shall command it. But I shall wait, according to my science of government, until conditions are favorable."
this one, for me, pertains to responsible governance and being logical subjects.


Here is my secret. It is very simple: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
i didn't know that this quote comes from this book. it is true... the physical fades, but the heart and compassion remains.


"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."
i'm very fond with the fox in this book. he's a feeling creature, and his words are wise. for me, it's like when you start caring and loving someone, you nurture the relationship. and whatever the circumstance is, whether it blooms or fails, we should take responsibility and not absolve ourselves from the commitment.

*my heartfelt thanks to pazette for recommending this book :)*

gift of a lifetime

before going back home to pinas last december, dadi handed me a gift. he said he hasn't found any christmas gift for me yet, so this is the best he came up with for the moment.. and i really appreciate it.

his words were, "mami, this is my gift of a lifetime.. i want us to read all of these together in our journey". so the beginning of our book saga. i will list down some that i have already read.

1. wuthering heights
2. don quixote *i'm adding this to my reread list*
3. harry potter series
4. his dark materials trilogy
5. memoirs of a geisha

hmm i'm still 45 books short. hopefully i can read 5 this year. these would include: pride and prejudice, life of pi, the bell jar, men without women, and on the road.

on another note, i want to share with you a site that i discovered called, manybooks. i'm so grateful and delighted to have bumped into this! they allow you to download ebooks free! and you can format them depending on your reader. so i'm getting mine in a pdf iphone format! how cool is that! :)

hugging the rock

*this book was given to me by dadi rak... he was very fond of it. he was all smiles when he handed it over to me. these are the lines from the 1st page...*

No Room
When my mom decides to run away from home
she packs up her car
with all the things that matter most
to her.

Her guitar
and some books
all her CDs
her clothes
her shoes
Grandma's music box from the fireplace mantle
and the quilt from the bed she shares with Dad.

She jams plastic grocery bags
filled with soap and shampoo
between the small spaces
left in between things
and tied a couple of suitcases to the roof.
At the last minute she
throws in a few dishes
some towels
and a potted red geranium
that guards the front porch.

Dad tells her not to pack stuffs too high
so she can still see out the back window
but she ignores him
and shoves her pillow
between her guitar case and portable TV.

By the time she's done
there's no room left for anything else.
No room left for Dad.

And no room left for me.

Closing Cycles

*i found this in my stockroom hehe.. it's a very nice read.*

Closing Cycles
By Paolo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, ! your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill. None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important. Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

*amen to that*

my take on harry

i'm definitely a big fan of jk rowling's harry potter series. having read the first four books for 3x already and the fifth and sixth book 2x is an evidence that i don't tire myself reading it all over again. the first book's movie was shown in pinas last nov.1 of 2005. i actually gave birth to my eldest on oct.25 2005 and went to the movie house at megamall on the 1st showing day just to watch it with dadi niño. hehe fanatic talaga... we even have a dvd collection of the movies shown except for the 5th installment which is not out in the market yet.

the latest movie, order of the phoenix, was admittedly quite boring but was not that bad. i myself didn't really enjoyed reading the book itself so much because it had so many pages and so many side stories. i guess we can't blame the book for being written that way because rowling was just doing justice to each character in harry potter's life, why they turned out to be good wizards and some into villains. some might not really appreciate the movie due to the fact that there were less animations and off-the-seats-wow experience like we had during the 4th movie. harry was most of the time 'angry' at book 5, well practically because of his loss (sirius) and that most people would not believe him that voldemort is back. more agravatingly, the so-called wanna-be-popular and miss-know-it-all professor umbridge was on the scene exploiting the power handed to her by the ministry to take charge of hogwarts.

now that the last installment to the harry potter series book is out in the market, i'm not sure if i want to join the bandwagon and buy the book. somehow i have reservations because it would mean the end... the end of waiting what's next and anticipating more actions and adventures. it was how i felt when i had to buy the last book for the shopaholic series of sophie kinsella. i really really loved those books that i'm willing to read them again by end of this year.

maybe it's just the feeling of elatedness whenever harry vanquishes the evil that makes it more exciting. and how friends would really stick up with you come what may. and how our emotions and feelings for our loved ones suffer also when we're in pain so its best that we move away from them. it's still human nature that is evident even in the magical world. and it was nice that rowling didn't concentrate so much on the divinities and powers beyond humans.

as for the deathly hallows, well i still have to contemplate whether i'll just borrow a copy or get one myself or collect the books altogether or maybe wait for the completion of the movies... we'll see. i'll let you know my decision in time. =)