My Favorite Pop Culture Quotes

Everyone has some sort of quote or favorite movie line they enjoy reciting by heart. For me, quoting from pop culture is something I enjoy like performing my own modern Shakespeare adapted play. It is something witty and shows the capacity for someone to be colorful and spontaneous in life.

I enjoyed reading a novels since I was four. My first novel I read was The Notebook when I was six years old. The pages fluttering through my hand and the rustling of paper was almost a meditation from the reality of the world. It became a cushy outlet that I was still stuck in my mind traversing the hallways of Hogwarts, wandering the haunted house with the seductive Alexander Sterling from Vampire Kisses to sitting in the middle of an intimate conversation between a Goth chick and a Cannibal Corpse fan in Heavy Metal & You.

After majoring in English, my love of reading started to become a habit of analyzing every word, every sentence, and every scene that comes to my mind. It is difficult for me to curl up with a good book without thinking of the appearance, manner, and reflection in which the character or the author chose that type of imagination to bring their own life into a colorful story. Oh the perils of wanting to enjoy a book with childish fantasies!

But since we are on the topic of English, I would like to mention some of my favorite quotes that a comment to society, culture, and traditions that are struggling to hold onto a more technologically advanced system of living.

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I've led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I've loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough." ― Nicholas Sparks, 'The Notebook'

The novel was based on the loving relationship between Sparks' grandparents. The quote is simply talking about how the man of the relationship has lived enough in his life to know that there were several special moments along the way that he can finally say he's accomplished everything he could ever dream of.

Everyone will have a time where they can look at the people around them and see how much more they can do before the final finishing touches on their life. It is not easy picking and choosing battles, but it is enough to start to reflect on the ways in which we want to see the final picture of what our life was all about.

"If you want to know what a man’s like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals." ― J. K. Rowling, 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire'

I am a big Harry Potter fan, but I also like some of the things that Sirius Black and other members of the Marauders Map often give as advice to Harry.

This quote comes from the moment in the fourth novel after Harry Potter has officially become the youngest competitor in the history of the Triwizard Tournament. He writes to Sirius about the events that happened and his response urges him to tread caution about anyone and everyone in the tournament, especially the Auror Mad-Eye Moody (spoiler alert, it was Barty Crouch Jr. the whole time with a polyjuice potion).

I use this quote as a reminder of people I have worked with, attended classes with, and have pursued romantic relationships with. I may have my own inferiors whom I treat with modesty and respect, but I also have some that I downright loathe and not afraid to admit it. But people like bullies, or those non-committal fling pursuers, you have to see how they view their friends and their victims.

"If I am an angel, paint me with black wings." ― Anne Rice, 'The Vampire Armand'

This is my favorite quote from Anne Rice. I have read all of her vampire chronicles and their new tales, but my favorite character out of all of them was Armand. He was only 17 when he was converted into a vampire, but he surely knows the world and what it was like, even when he was trafficked as a household slave during the times of Constantinople while he was human.

As the oldest of vampires, he knows how to work his charm and his beauty to his own purpose. In the scene this quote is used, he is having a romantic affair with Marius. Marius finds him irresistible and comments that Armand is like a devil with the beauty of the angel, to which he replies about being painted as a dark angel due to his beauty.

This quote is simply a quote about seduction; you can easily be a good girl with a halo around her head, but inside you have some secret little sorcery about you. I enjoy this quote the most because there are times where I want to be devilish or beautifully wicked. The vaudeville theaters of old, the burlesque scene, the way lights and cameras come together to bring out the best or worst in people, is why everyone secretly enjoys wearing black panties while wearing an angelic face.

"Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider, is chaos for the fly." ― Charles Addams

I have been a big fan of the Addams family. I have always wanted to be like Wednesday when I was young and Morticia once I was a little older. Charles Addams was a great comic writer and his comics and tales of this odd family live on in popular culture.

The problem with normalcy in this quote, as he has said, is that people who want to be normal are often the most dysfunctional. Charles Addams wrote these comics about his family and his life. While everyone else could see them as normal or odd, he took it to his advantage and made the most iconic family that everyone loves to this day.

We are not always normal; we are usually far from that. Normalcy means everyone is the same and there is not one shred of abnormality that would give life its flavor.

"Chaos is what killed the dinosaurs, darling." ― J.D., 'Heathers'

With this cult film, I was torn between this quote and the quote J.D. tells Veronica before taking her to get that cherry slushie at the local convenience store. While logically it is not true that the dinosaurs were killed by chaos, but maybe meteors, J.D. does have a logical point with that quote.

Simply put, chaos runs the world and we are just the performers. But for every type of chaos, there are rivets of consequences.

"Ladies do not start fights, but they can finish them.” – 'The AristoCats'

This is the most iconic quote I enjoy from any Disney movie. I can recite any line from Alice in Wonderland, but this quote is from a movie my sister and I have enjoyed since childhood.

Ladies are loud and proud women; if someone wants to fight us, boy or girl, just know that those claws of ours are not for pretend. We are always defenders of our families, friends, and ourselves. As a person, our identity is a context that is complemented from our clothes, music, and hairstyles. If you test us, surely you are going to be in a world of hurt.

Although there may be more pop culture quotes for me to talk about, the list would have been a lot longer than choosing the best seven and discussing them. If you like my quotes, check out my other stuff.