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They Cage the Animals at Night by Jennings Michael Burch

  1. Endurance by Alfred Lansing
  2. Live From New York by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales
  3. Heaven’s Coast by Mark Doty
  4. How To Love Your Wife by John Buri
  5. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
  6. They Cage the Animals at Night by Jennings Michael Burch
  7. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by Chuck Klosterman
  8. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
  9. Those Guys Have All the Fun by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales

They Cage the Animals at Night quotes

 

They Cage the Animals at Night

The True Story of an Abandoned Child’s Struggle for Emotional Survival

 

by Jennings Michael Burch

 

 

They Cage the Animals at Night may be the first book that I literally could not put down. I read this in my early-teens. There were books before it that I couldn’t wait to pick up again and thought about every moment until I did, but I could not stop reading this book. I distinctly remember laying under my covers with a flashlight so as to not wake up my brother flipping page after page as the hours ticked by. Each chapter would end and each time I would tell myself, “Just one more chapter.” The next thing I knew, it was 5:30am in the morning and I had an hour before I had to wake up for school.

So, yeah, this is a Sticky Book… Unfortunately I could not find a copy to pull quotes from and there are very few online, so you’ll just have to trust me.  

 

JMB: “Sister, why do you do that?”
S: “Do what?”
JMB: “Cage the animals at night?”
S: “Well…” She looked up and out through the barred window before answering me.”We don’t want to, Jennings, but we have to. You see, the animals that are given to us we have to take care of. If we didn’t cage them up in one place, we might lose them, they might get hurt or damaged. It’s not the best thing, but it’s the only way we have to take care of them.”

JMB: “But if somebody loved one of them,” I asked, “wouldn’t it be a good idea to let them have one? To keep, I mean?”

S: “Yes, it would be. But not everyone would love them and take care of them as you would. I wish I could give them all away tomorrow.” She looked at me. There were tears in her eyes. “But I can’t. My heart would break if I saw just one of those animals lying by the wayside uncared for, unloved. No, Jennings. It’s better if we keep them together.”

 

“The table and chair legs were like bars of the cage around me. This time they weren’t keeping me in, they were keeping her out.”

 

“But sometimes lying’s better. It makes me feel good.” I said. “But only for a little while. When the lie has to stand up from the truth and doesn’t, it hurts twice as much.”

 

“It’s the words,” he said. “So many people think their love won’t be accepted or returned, so they don’t say it. They think by not saying it, they won’t be hurt. They’re wrong.”

 

 

 

Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

 

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

  1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  7. Uniformity With God’s Will By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
  8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  9. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  10. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
  11. The Winner Within by Pat Riley
  12. In My Own Words by Mother Teresa
  13. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
  14. “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
  15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
  17. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  18. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
  19. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  20. Four Miles to Pinecone by Jon Hassler
  21. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
  22. Skinnybones by Barbara Park
  23. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  25. At Home by Bill Bryson
  26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  27. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  28. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  31. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  32. Shane by Jack Schaefer
  33. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
  34. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
  35. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Book ThiefThe Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

 

 

“I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality. But what could I tell her about those things that she didn’t already know? I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race-that rarely do I ever simply estimate it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant.”

 

“Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.”

 

“Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.”

 

“A small but noteworthy note. I’ve seen so many young men over the years who think they’re running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.” (Death)

 

“Somewhere, far down, there was an itch in his heart, but he made it a point not to scratch it. He was afraid of what might come leaking out.”

 

“The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I’m always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both.”

 

“A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY. Not leaving: an act of trust and love,
often deciphered by children”

 

“I am haunted by humans.”

 

“I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that’s where they begin. Their great skill is their capacity to escalate.”

 

 

“It kills me sometimes, how people die.”

 

 

Find more writing and publishing tips at Nothing Any Good.

Sticky Books are those that you just can’t get out of your head. They stick with you long after you have put the book down and have moved on to something else. These are some of my Sticky Books. I don’t enjoy reviewing books myself. I find I am either full of far too much praise for the book because I know how difficult it can be to write a book, or I am far too negative about a book because, well, I guess I was just in a bad mood. So instead of reviews, I have pulled some of my favorite quotes from each Sticky Book.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

  1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  2. Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
  4. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
  5. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
  6. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
  7. Uniformity With God’s Will By Saint Alphonsus de Liguori
  8. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
  9. Daring Greatly by Brene Brown
  10. They Call Me Coach by John Wooden
  11. The Winner Within by Pat Riley
  12. In My Own Words by Mother Teresa
  13. The World According to Mister Rogers by Fred Rogers
  14. “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” by Richard P. Feynman
  15. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner
  17. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
  18. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
  19. My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
  20. Four Miles to Pinecone by Jon Hassler
  21. Runaway Ralph by Beverly Cleary
  22. Skinnybones by Barbara Park
  23. Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi
  24. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
  25. At Home by Bill Bryson
  26. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
  27. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
  28. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
  29. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
  30. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  31. Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson
  32. Shane by Jack Schaefer
  33. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer
  34. Adventures in the Screen Trade by William Goldman
  35. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Recommended readingThe Road

by Cormac McCarthy

 

“People were always getting ready for tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them. It didn’t even know they were there.”

 

“He walked out in the gray light and stood and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. Continue reading

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