Twofer: Harry Potter and Hermione Granger

I love Harry’s heart and lack of bitterness about his crappy relatives. Hermione embraces her brilliance – it just is who she is and I wish I would have been more comfortable with my smarts – to really feel confident instead of turning down my light at some times of my life.

You should have told her differently,’ said Hermione, still with that maddeningly patient air. ‘You should have said it was really annoying, but I’d made you promise to come along to the Three Broomsticks, and you really didn’t want to go, you’d much rather spend the whole day with her, but unfortunately you thought you really ought to meet me and would she please, please come along with you, and hopefully you’d be able to get away more quickly? And it might have been a good idea to mention how ugly you think I am too,’ Hermione added as an afterthought.
‘But I don’t think you’re ugly,’ said Harry, bemused.
Hermione laughed.
– J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harriet the Spy

The movie in no way lives up to this book (READ the book, children!)and how it particularly made me feel at 11. Such nerve and yet she was slightly self-conscious so very relatable. But made feel okay when I was younger that being curious about people and the world and having imagination were good things. I loved this book so much I eat tomato sandwiches on occasion and fuel my inner Harriet.

She didn’t care anymore… and she got no pleasure from the work she did, but she did it. Everything bored her. She found that when she didn’t have a notebook it was hard for her to think. The thoughts came slowly, as though they had to squeeze through a tiny door to get to her, whereas when she wrote, they flowed out faster than she could put them down. She sat very stupidly with a blank mind until finally ‘I feel different’ came slowly to her mind.

Yes, she thought, after a long pause. And then, after more time, ‘Mean, I feel mean.
— Louise Fitzhugh (Harriet The Spy)

Hercule Poirot

I adore Agatha Christie mysteries. The feeling of “proper” English with such detailed, interesting characters. And none more than the genius Hercule Poirot.

Words, madmoiselle, are only the outer clothing of ideas.
— Agatha Christie, The A.B.C. Murders

Ah, but life is like that! It does not permit you to arrange and order it as you will. It will not permit you to escape emotion, to live by the intellect and by reason! You cannot say, ‘I will feel so much and no more.’ Life, Mr. Welman, whatever else it is, is not reasonable. — Agatha Christie, Sad Cypress