Books
17 Literary Quotes To Get You Into The Solar Eclipse Spirit
After months of anticipation, it is finally here: the Great American Eclipse of 2017. Today, August 21, millions of people across the United States will get the chance to experience one of the most incredible, celestial occurrences in the world when portions of the country is plunged into complete darkness for a few minutes of magic and wonder. As tempting as it may be to throw caution to the wind and sneak a peak at the total eclipse of the sun, doing so without the proper precautions can result in serious harm. That's is why I've rounded up some literary quotes about the moon and the sun to look at instead, because not all of us (mental head slap) snagged a pair of eclipse glasses on time.
The total solar eclipse is a breathtaking phenomenon that hasn't been visible in the United States since the 1970 occurrence 38 years ago. unfortunately, it's not something you can just go outside and look at without taking the proper precautions first. Unless you have specialized glasses that can protect your eyes, you run the risk of injuring your retina and causing serious damage, including blindness. Your UV sunglasses, bedroom window, and smartphone camera lens won't cut it either, so unless you're fully protected, you're going to have to sit this eclipse out and wait for the next one in 2024.
If you didn't get a chance to grab your special viewing glasses, find yourself stuck inside during the eclipse, or don't live somewhere where there's a good view, fear not, because you can still celebrate this momentous occasion with bookish quotes about the moon and the sun. Don't worry, no protective eye wear is needed to enjoy these beautiful views.
“There was just one moon. That familiar, yellow, solitary moon. The same moon that silently floated over fields of pampas grass, the moon that rose ― a gleaming, round saucer ― over the calm surface of lakes, that tranquilly beamed down on the rooftops of fast-asleep houses. The same moon that brought the high tide to shore, that softly shone on the fur of animals and enveloped and protected travelers at night. The moon that, as a crescent, shaved slivers from the soul ― or, as a new moon, silently bathed the earth in its own loneliness. THAT moon.”
― Haruki Murakami, 1Q84
“Moonlight drowns out all but the brightest stars.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
“'There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it,’ said my mother. 'Put yourself in the way of beauty.'”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
"The daylight, the trailing glory of the sun, went streaming out of the sky, was drawn aside like some luminous curtain, and at last I looked into the blue gulf of immensity which the sunshine hides, and saw the floating hosts of the stars."
― H.G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau
“And he beholds the moon; like a rounded fragment of ice filled with motionless light.”
― Gustave Flaubert, The Temptation of St. Antony
“Sometimes, when you're deep in the countryside, you meet three girls, walking along the hill tracks in the dusk, spinning. They each have a spindle, and on to these they are spinning their wool, milk-white, like the moonlight. In fact, it is the moonlight, the moon itself, which is why they don't carry a distaff. They're not Fates, or anything terrible; they don't affect the lives of men; all they have to do is to see that the world gets its hours of darkness, and they do this by spinning the moon down out of the sky. Night after night, you can see the moon getting less and less, the ball of light waning, while it grown on the spindles of the maidens. Then, at length, the moon is gone, and the world has darkness, and rest..."
― Mary Stewart, The Moon-Spinners
"The sun comes out, a golden huzzar, from his tent, flashing his helm on the world."
― Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man
“He lay on his back in his blankets and looked our where the quartermoon lay cocked over the heel of the mountains. In the false blue dawn the Pleiades seemed to be rising up into the darkness above the world and dragging all the stars away, the great diamond of Orion and Cepella and the signature of Cassiopeia all rising up through the phosphorous dark like a sea-net. He lay a long time listening to the others breathing in their sleep while he contemplated the wildness about him, the wildness within.”
― Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
“In the sky there are always answers and explanations for everything: every pain, every suffering, joy and confusion.”
― Ishmael Beah, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier
“Dusk is just an illusion because the sun is either above the horizon or below it. And that means that day and night are linked in a way that few things are there cannot be one without the other yet they cannot exist at the same time. How would it feel I remember wondering to be always together yet forever apart?”
― Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook
“When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.”
― George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones
“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs, Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
― Khaled Hosseini, A Thousand Splendid Suns
“If the moon smiled, she would resemble you. You leave the same impression Of something beautiful, but annihilating.”
― Sylvia Plath, Ariel
“In the darkness, two shadows, reaching through the hopeless, heavy dusk. Their hands meet, and light spills in a flood like a hundred golden urns pouring out of the sun.”
― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles
“The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.”
― Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance
“There's no point in saving the world if it means losing the moon.”
― Tom Robbins, Still Life with Woodpecker
“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”
― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
