Favorite Literary Quotes

[Jean]

What are some of your favorite quotes from the books, poems, etc that you've read?

I almost put this one in my sig:

"Sometimes, being a bitch is all a woman has to hang on to."
- from Delores Claiborne by Stephen King (thought a prayer is much more appropriate is than this one lol)

And I always liked this one:

"Not all who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien

[Sajhe]

"Go juggle something" - Min to thom. oh how i love her :D

[Molimo]

I don't really want to quote WoT on a WoT site... since you'll probably all know it... but I love Lini's quote in TFoH: "At my age, if I make it up, it's still an old saying." It may not make sense... but I still like it!

From non-WoT sources? In "Othello", Iago remarks: "... I am nothing if not critical", which I also really like because it applies to me so perfectly :dozey:

[Byrn]

"There is no try. Do or do not." - Yoda

I know, it's from a movie and not a book. But I'm drawing a blank at the moment.

[QuirkyTemplate]

Originally posted by Jean
"Not all who wander are lost." - J.R.R. Tolkien

oooh, i like that one too :)

[Beowulf]

Originally posted by QuirkyTemplate
oooh, i like that one too :)

Me too, very nice. :)

[Byrn]

One Ring to rule them all.
One Ring to Find them.
One Ring to bring them all
And in the Darkness, Bind them.
In the Land of Mordor
Where the Shadows Lie.

[Night_Daughter]

This is from a book called 'Memoirs of Cleopatra' and it says
"I had hoped to share old age with you as well. But godessess to not grow old"

[Jean]

This isn't too from a book, but I like it. hehe

"T.V....teacher, mother, secret lover."

Guess where that came from. lol

[Durendal]

*Comicbook-Store Guy voice*

Homer Simpson "Treehouse of Horror V"

for a minute i thought it was VapoRub

~eats some extra greasy/cheezy nachoes & a Big Gulp Squishee*

[Tynthros]

Heh, I was going to do the Jean's too :/

I also like: "Little by little, one travels far," also by Tolkien.

[Endrin al'sohl]

My sig. it is from a shirt my Cousin's husband made for me

[Alexia]

I have TWO! :D

And lo, all these works were completed in five days, showing that if God had used sufficient Techies in the first place, He would have finished sooner ~ The Techie Gospel

She was stark naked except for a PVC raincoat, dress, net, stockings, undergarments, shoes, rain hat, and gloves ~ Keith Waterhouse

[GWINNA]

"...Two things are clear to me at this point -- First-- One of the three pregnant women I met has someone in her belly my sparring partner wants to STOP from being born...Except he doesn't know WHICH one it is, so he's knocking them ALL off. Second-- Floating Ghost Babies REALLY get on my nerves after a while."
--Wolverine Comics 44

[lan sam]

"Joffrey is truly a little shit"

So true...

[Jean]

God is like a mirror.
The mirror never changes,
but everbody who looks in it sees something different.
--Rabbi Harold Kushner

I don't know which weapons we will use in world war III, but in world war IV we will fight each other with sticks and bones
--Albert Einstein

"You're not friends. You'll never be friends. You'll be in love 'til it kills you both. You'll fight, and you'll shag, and you'll hate each other 'til it makes you quiver, but you'll never be friends. Love isn't brains, children. It's blood. Blood screaming inside you to work it's will. I may be love's bitch, but at least I'm man enough to admit it. "
--Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer :D

[Night_Daughter]

"My inner voice told me to get up this morning, the other three said go back to sleep"

"Hello, I see that the assassins have failed"
Can't remember where these come from.

['Skis]

I like this one from To Kill A Mockingbird..
"Had I ever harboured the mystical notions about mountains that seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been analagous to Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and there."

You guys might not like it, but I thought it was cool.

[Alexia]

Originally posted by Logain
I like this one from To Kill A Mockingbird..
"Had I ever harboured the mystical notions about mountains that seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been analagous to Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and there."

You guys might not like it, but I thought it was cool.
Yeah, I remember that one. Nice. :D

[ClimberMan]

in the princess bride (the book)

when westley is talking to buttercup at the farm and he says"
My God if your love were a grain of sand my would be a universe of beaches. if you love were"

then buttercup
"
"I don't understand the first one yet. "Buttercup interupted. She was starting to get very excited now. "Let me get this straight. Are you saying my love is a grain of sand and yours is this other thing? Images just confuse me so is this universal business of yours bigger than my sand? Help me, Westley. I have the feeling we are on the verge of something terribly important."

and no i didn't have it memorized i looked it up

[Corvus Corax]

"....I am convinced that also the last acts, to which
I alone, the actor, am witness, in a river
that no one comes to - will, eventually,
acquire a meaning"

the stylish beast

hands up, everyone who has seen Salò

[Night_Daughter]

I can't remember the whole thing but Jean Cretien said "A proof is a proof and we know it's a proof when it is proven"

[Endrin al'sohl]

Quotes that will live through the ages



1) from Dork tower "I kill Gandalf."

2) from the Fellowship of the Ring "Fly you fools!"

[Endrin al'sohl]

i forgot one though it is not from litturature. "WTF!?"

[GWINNA]

This is more of a movie then literature but I've seen some movie quotes already so ....
---------------------------------------------
Conner MacManus: Jesus! He brought a six-shooter!
Murphy MacManus: There were nine of them, you retard! What were you going to do with the last three, laugh them to death? Funny man?

Paul Smecker: Television is the explanation for this. You see this in bad television. Little assault guys creeping through the vents, coming in through the ceiling--that James Bond shit never happens in real life, professionals don't do that!

Conner MacManus: How far are we going to take this?
Il Duce: The question is not how far. The question is, do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as is needed?
---------------------------------------------
Boondock Saints

[prophetic_joe]

This is just great.

"Jimmy hated rap and not because it was black and from the ghetto - hell, that's where P-funk and soul and a lotta kick-ass blues had come from - but because he couldn't for thelife of himsee any talent in it. You strung a bunch of limericks together of the "Man form Nantucket" variey, had a DJ scratch a few records back and forth, and threw out your chest as you spoke into a microphone. Oh, yeah, it was raw, it was street, it was the truth, motherfucker. So was pissing your name in the snow and vomiting. He heard some moron music critic on the radio say once that sampling was an "art form" and Jimmy, who didn't know much about art, wanted to reach through the speaker and bitch-slap the obviously white, obviously over-educated, obviously dickless pinhead. If sampling was an art form, then most of the thieves Jimmy had known growing up were artists, too."

Mystic River: Dennis Lehane

[GWINNA]

"I respect you don't eat meat, please respect that I don't eat FAKE meat."
--Raven from Teen Titians

[Jean]

From the Editorial Page of The New York Sun, written by Francis P. Church, September 21, 1897

<HR WIDTH=90% Height="1" COLOR="000000">

We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:

"Dear Editor--I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in The Sun, it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?

Virginia O'Hanlon
115 West Ninety-fifth Street


Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the scepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no child-like faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

[Tayhlon]

"Okay, I've got the front bumper. You take the rear and we'll be able to carry it back to the road-and we'd better deposit it in the left lane."
He wasn't kidding.

Random and Corwin from Nine Princes in Amber

[Llothlian]

OK now i noticed some of you had found a few nice quotes here. Now i thought i would show you some real literature. In my humble oppinion this is the single greatest piece of literature every writen by man. I first read it at school, and something about the poem moved me. Whenever i think of this piece i feel awe. Forget Tolkien, and Jordan. Forget King, and McAfrey. Forget all those other great writers of modern literiture, people, because you are about to read the epitome of all that is great in literature.

<hr width="80%">
<center>The Charge of the Light Brigade

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

<hr width="60%">

1.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.
<hr width="80%">
</center>
BTW i will not chose a single line from this piece of art to display as the best. That would only cheapen such a masterpiece. That, my friends, I will not do. If there is somebody out there who wasnt moved by this poem, then that person does not deserve the ability to read. Good Night.

[Dingdin]

For quotes, always look in the Icelandic sagas... a sample:


(from Njal's Saga CHAPTER XXXVII

The Slaying of Kol, Whom Atli Slew:)


'Atli rode till he met some of Hallgerda's workmen, and said, "Go ye up to the horse yonder, and look to Kol, for he has fallen off, and is dead."

"Hast thou slain him? " say they.

"Well, 'twill seem to Hallgerda as though he has not fallen by his own hand." '


Or this, from
CHAPTER LXXVI

Gunnar's Slaying

(Note: Hallgerda is Gunnar's wife)

' Gunnar had already wounded eight men and slain those twain (1). By that time Gunnar had got two wounds, and all men said that he never once winced either at wounds or death.

Then Gunnar said to Hallgerda, "Give me two locks of thy hair, and ye two, my mother and thou, twist them together into a bowstring for me."

"Does aught lie on it?" she says.

"My life lies on it;" he said; "for they will never come to close quarters with me if I can keep them off with my bow."

"Well!" she says, "now I will call to thy mind that slap on the face which thou gavest me; and I care never a whit whether thou holdest out a long while or a short."

Then Gunnar sang a song:

"Each who hurts the gory javelin
Hath some honour of his own,
Now my helpmeet wimple-hooded
Hurries all my fame to earth.
No one owner of a war-ship
Often asks for little things,
Woman, fond of Frodi's flour (2),
Wends her hand as she is wont."

"Every one has something to boast of," says Gunnar, "and I will ask thee no more for this." '


Or this from
CHAPTER LXII

The Slaying of Hjort and Fourteen Men

' Kolskegg turned sharp round, and strode towards him, and smote him with his short sword on the thigh, and cut off his leg, and said, "Did it touch thee or not?"

"Now," says Kol, "I pay for being bare of my shield."

So he stood a while on his other leg and looked at the stump.

"Thou needest not to look at it," said Kolskegg; "'tis even as thou seest, the leg is off."

Then Kol fell down dead. '

Njal's Saga online:
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/epics/TheStoryofBurntNjal/chap62.html

[Jean]

"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-boy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!"

A Christmas Carol--
Charles Dickens

[Arianna Sedai]

finally some tennyson on this thread...i love his works.

have several books of them in my room

[Dhelvanen]

hamlet. all of it. hehe...

"i will now take my leave of you, milord."
"there is nothing you could take with which i would more readily part....except my life. except my life."

(quote is as close as i could remember, unless someone wants to send me a copy of hamlet...hehe)

[Jean]

"Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others...

And your very flesh shall be a great poem. "
-- Walt Whitman

[Llothlian]

And it comes to be,
That the soothing light at the end of your tunnel,
Is just a frieght train coming your way.

- Metallica, No Leaf Clover

I know this is not strictly a literary quote, but i like it anyway...

[cyber]

Look Down!!!

[Jean]

I hold it the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
-Robert Frost

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
-W. H. Auden

[Terry Courageous]

Originally posted by Jean
I hold it the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
-Robert Frost

Robert Frost said that?

[Jean]

Originally posted by The Game
Robert Frost said that?

Yep. At an address he gave at Berkley in 1935, I think it was 1935. :)

[Freemason]

Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.
--Ernest Hemingway

[Jean]

"It was her scars that made her beautiful"
A Secret History-- Mary Gentle

[KindOfBlue]

"Life's full of riddles only the dead can answer"
The Famished Road by Ben Okri

"Kent - Is this the promised end?
Edgar- Or image of that horror?
Albany - Fall and cease."
King Lear

"Sad-eyed lady of the lowlands.
Where the sad-eyed prophet says
That no man comes...."
Couldn't resist a Dylan quote!

[Durendal]

Ay, true,- I envy him.
Look you, when life is brimful of success -Though the past hold no action foul- one feels
A thousand self-disgusts, of which the sum
Is not remorse, but a dim, vague unrest;
And, as one mounts the steps of worldly fame,
The Dukes' furred mantles trail within their folds
A sound of dead illusions, vain regrets,
A rustle- scarce a whisper,- like as when,
Mounting the terrace steps, your mourning robe
Sweeps in its train the dying autumn leaves.


--De Guiche, Cyrano De Bergerac

[Cmdr_Adeon]

Nice to see the Charge of the Light Brigade

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old." - Winston Churchill

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and it's Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say 'This was their finest hour'." - Churchill again