Welcome to Eloquent Friday Finds! If you've cruised this blog a little, you may recall that I've been collecting words and phrases that I find inspiring, thought-provoking, funny, well-written, or simply nice to remember. To keep this going, I'll be posting my finds once a week for your enjoyment and for an easy way to keep them recorded. Feel free to chime in with favorites you've come across as well. I always need good recommendations! 

Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. -Nicole Krauss

I have been so busy managing everyone else's heart, I do not know my own." -Emma (2009)

Laughter is God's weapon against this life. -Tim Hawkins

I am at this moment as quiet as my heart can wish. Quietness is my definition of happiness. -Hannah More

She had a lively, playful disposition which delighted in anything ridiculous. -Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these. -Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. -Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, 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, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

No one except Lucy knew that as [the albatross] circled the mast it had whispered to her, "Courage, dear heart," and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan's, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face. -The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

It is odd enough to see how the entrance of a person of the opposite sex into an assemblage of either men or women calms down the little discordances and the disturbance of mood. -Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell

People laugh at me because I use big words, but if you have big ideas, you have to use big words to express them, haven't you? -Anne Shirley, Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

For a moment Anne's heart fluttered queerly and for the first time her eyes faltered under Gilbert's gaze and a rosy flush stained the paleness of her face. It was as if a veil that hand hung before her inner consciousness had been lifted, giving to her view a revelation of unsuspected feelings and realities. Perhaps, after all, romance did not come into one's life with pomp and blare, like a gay knight riding down; perhaps it crept to one's side like an old friend through quiet ways; perhaps it revealed itself in seeming prose, until some sudden shaft of illumination flung athwart its pages betrayed the rhythm and music; perhaps...perhaps...love unfolded naturally out of a beautiful friendship, as a golden-hearted rose slipping from its green sheath. -Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Gilbert, I'm afraid I'm scandalously in love with you. You don't think it's irreverent, do you? But then, you're not a minister. -Anne Shirley, Anne of Windy Poplars by Lucy Maud Montgomery

Thank heaven for spring Fridays, yes? Go read a good story this weekend. Or discover one.