Favourite Book Quotes (other than HP)

I made search but I couldn't find anything, (but I'm sure I saw a similar thread before, so please refer me if there's already one.)

The one I have now comes from 'Julius Ceasar, II.3, Artemidorus : Ceasra, beware of Brutus, take heed of Cassius, come not near Casca, have an eye to Cinna, trust not Trebonius, mark well Mtellus Cimber, Decius Brutus loves thee not, Thou hast wrong'd Casius Ligarius.
So what are your favourite quotes?

I love quotes from Jane Austen's books. They are profound, sarcastic, truthful and have a striking impact!:tu:
I love these and I hope you enjoy them too:)

From the masterpiece " Pride and Prejudice"

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife".

"To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love."

"Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance."

"One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty."

From "Persuasion":

"It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides."

From "Mansfield Park"

"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of."

"We do not look in great cities for our best morality."

"She was of course only too good for him; but as nobody minds having what is too good for them, he was very steadily earnest in the pursuit of the blessing..."

"I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion is general, it is usually correct".

"I shall soon be rested," said Fanny; "to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment."

"It is a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal."

"But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them. "

From "Emma":

"One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other."

"Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does."

"Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of being kindly spoken of. "

"Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable."

"Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort."

From "Northanger Abbey":

"To look almost pretty is an acquisition of higher delight to a girl who has been looking plain for the first fifteen years of her life than a beauty from her cradle can ever receive."

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

"It would be mortifying to the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their attire."

Wow, the aboves are all lovely!

From the awsomeness which is Captain Corelli's Mandolin:

"Dr Iannis had enjoyed a satisfactory day in which none of his patients had died or got any worse."

""You have an exorbitant auditory impediment," replied the doctor, ever aware of the necessity for maintaining a certain iatric mystique, and fully aware that 'a pea in the ear' was unlikely to earn him any kudos."

There are many, many marvellous quotes in the first chapter alone, but I think you really need them in context to appreciate them, and I think everyone should read this book in any case. Even if you only read the first chapter. The. Best. First. Chapter. Ever.

"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but one" - Ernest Hemmingway A Farewell to Arms

"And when the time comes, if you don't go to Lagardere, Lagerdere will go to you". Paul Féval, Le Bossu.

"When we know all of whatever it may be, we can never do anything but forgive, madame. That is the profoundest religious truth that was ever written. It contains, in fact, a whole religion − the noblest religion any man could have to guide him. I say this for your comfort, madame my mother." Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche.

"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia" C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair

"On every formal visit a child ought to be of the party, by way of provision for discourse". Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but one" - Ernest Hemmingway A Farewell to Arms

That's a good one....:tu:

"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but one" - Ernest Hemmingway A Farewell to ArmsIsn't that an allusion to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar? Something like "Cowards die a thousand times before their death; the valiant only taste of death but once." That's probably not completely accurate since I'm doing it from memory, but I'm positive it's from Caesar.

Since I just finished reading Othello, here are a few from that play:
"Beware, my lord, of jealousy. It is the green-eyed monster that doth mock the meat it feeds on."
"Heaven doth truely know that thou art false as hell."
"Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies." :rotfl:

From my other current read, Fahrenheit 451:
"Grandfather's been dead for all these years, but if you lifted my skull, by God, in the convolutions of my brain you'd find the big ridges of his thumbprint."
"He felt like she was walking in a circle about him, turning him end for end, shaking him quietly, and emptying his pockets, without once moving herself."

Some of my favourites:

"With laws shall our land be built up and with lawlessness laid waste" Njals Saga

"Consume my heart away. Sick with desire and fastened to a dying animal, it knows not what it is" WB Yeats Sailing to Byzantium

"I'm sure that nobody would fall in love or want to get married if they hadn't been told about it. It's like abroad - nobody would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed" Evelyn Waugh Decline and Fall

"An archaeologist is the best husband any woman could havem because the older she gets, the more interested he is in her." Agatha Christie

"Death is my beat."- The Poet, Michael Connolly.

""Hello", he said. "My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.""- The Princess Bride, William Goldman

"Into this wild abyss,
The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mixed
Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the almighty maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds,
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend
Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while,
Pondering his voyage..."- Paradise Lost, John Milton

"Demand me nothing: what you know, you know:
From this time forth I never will speak word. "- Othello, William Shakespeare

From The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

"When you know that language, it's easy to believe that someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city… without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning."

"When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."

"There is only one way to learn. It's through action."

"Wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure."

From The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them."

"To forget a friend is sad. Not every one has had a friend. And if I forget him, I may become like the grown-ups who are no longer interested in anything but figures…"

"But the conceited man did not hear him. Conceited people never hear anything but praise."

“Nevertheless he is the only one of them all who does not seem to me ridiculous. Perhaps that is because he is thinking of something else besides himself.”

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

"You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed."

Now freelantzer mentioned, I remember another from Farenheit 451: "Never judge a book for the cover"

And this one, I found recently in The Man who was Thursday:

"It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy". :lol:

Some of my favorites quotes are from Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk:

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile."

"You buy furniture. You tell yourself, this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes. The rug. Then you're trapped in your lovely nest, and the things you used to own, now they own you."

"I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not **** or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything."

And this one, I found recently in The Man who was Thursday:

"It may be conceded to the mathematicians that four is twice two. But two is not twice one; two is two thousand times one. That is why, in spite of a hundred disadvantages, the world will always return to monogamy". :lol:

Ah, that's just reminded me of another of my favourites, also from The Man Who Was Thursday (quoted very out of context, I'm afraid):

"Why do all the clerks and navvies in the railway trains look so sad and tired, so very sad and tired? I will tell you. It is because they know that the train is going right. It is because they know that whatever place they have taken a ticket for, that place they will reach. It is because after they have passed Sloane Square they know that the next station must be Victoria, and nothing but Victoria. Oh, their wild rapture! oh, their eyes like stars and their souls again in Eden, if the next station were unaccountably Baker Street!"

From the Twilight series:
"Twilight, again" he murmured. "Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end." ~ Edward.

Isn't that an allusion to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar? Something like "Cowards die a thousand times before their death; the valiant only taste of death but once." That's probably not completely accurate since I'm doing it from memory, but I'm positive it's from Caesar.


Yeah, i havent got it to hand but i seem to remember it says that he read it somewhere but couldnt remember where from, im guessing it might have been from caeser

From the end of "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khalid Hosseini

"The game only involves male names. Because if it's a girl, Laila has already named her"

I cant remember the exact phrase, it was a book by Saramago, the cave or the cavern or sth like that, I read it in spanish. He was talking about the main character's dog and he said "canine persons" instead of saying dog, and I found it hilarious and brilliant.

From Catcher in the Rye:
"I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it."

From Perks of Being a Wallflower:
"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."
"I feel infinite."
"I am very interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other."
"Sometimes, I look outside, and I think that a lot of other people have seen this snow before. Just like I think that a lot of other people have read those books before. And listened to those songs.
I wonder how they feel tonight."

From the Twilight series:
"Twilight, again" he murmured. "Another ending. No matter how perfect the day is, it always has to end." ~ Edward.
I love that line. :love:

From Twilight:

"And so the lion fell in love with the lamb." - Edward
"What a stupid lamb." - Bella
"What a sick, masochistic lion." - Edward

"In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." --The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." - Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (and incidentally the most fatally boring book I've ever had the misfortune to be forced to read).

Brsingr - Christopher Paolini

1. "'Well, be that as it may, these are reasons you give me, Eragon, and the heart rarely listens to reason. Do you fancy her or not?'
If he fancied her any more, Saphira said to both Eragon and Roran, I'd be trying to kiss Arya myself." --p25

2. "Have I ever told you how glad I am we're not enemies? Eragon asked.
No, but it's very sweet of you." --p717

3. "A soft growl emanated from Saphira, and she said, Be careful whom you call Sheepbiter, Eragon, or you might get bitten yourself.
Yes, Saphira." --p721

4. "'You should not abandon your guards so lightly,' Arya murmured in Eragon's left ear. She wrapped her sword arm around his waist and held him tightly as Saphira wheeled above the courtyard." --p722

5. "A league farther upstream, the Varden were packed against the Jiet River like a herd of red deer against the edge of a cliff. The Varden had arrived at the crossing yesterday, and since then. perhaps a third of the men-who-were-friends and the Urgals-who-were-friends and the horses-she-must-not-eat had forded the river"

"Horses-she-must-not-eat had me rolling!!!

6. "'Top that if you can,' he said, and pointed to the inside of his thighs. A riotous combination of colors mottled his skin, as if Eragon were an exotic fruit that was ripening in uneven patches from crabapple green to putrefied purple.
'Ouch,"said Roran.'What happened?'
'I jumped off Saphira when we were fighting Murtagh and Thorn in the air. That's how I wounded Thorn. Saphira managed to dive under me and catch me before I hit the ground, but I landed on her back a bit harder than I wanted to.'
Roran winced and shivered at the same time. 'Does it go all the way . . . ' He trailed off, and made a vague gesture upward.
'Unfortunately.'" -pg 30

7. "You named your sword Fire? Fire? What kind of boring name is that? You might as well name your sword Blazing Blade and be done with it. Fire Indeed! Humph" - Angela to Eragon, pg721.

8. "The mighty warrior is nervous ere his contest," observed Isold,
on of the six women next to Eragon. The group laughed.
"Perhaps," Brigitte said stirring water into flour, " he is worried
his sword may bend in the battle."

9. "Yes! I'm moving as fast as I can! It doesn't help you're so blasted big!

She growled." - pg. 308

10. "A dragonfly buzzed over her head, and not for the first time she wondered what could have possibly inspired some feebleminded runtling to name the insect after her race. It looks nothing like a dragon, she grumbled, then drifted off into a light sleep." - pg. 462

11. 'Of course not. You just surprised me. I am.......ah, somewhat preoccupied at the moment.
She studied the colour of his emotions, as well as those of Katrina and was amused by her findings.'

Also Saphira's hiccups... :rotfl:

Dresden Files: Dead Beat by Jim butcher

Harry Dresden:

"Thomas is too pretty to die, I'm too stubborn to die and Polka will never die. Repeat after me POLKA WILL NEVER DIE"

or something along those lines :rotfl:

“The art of war teaches us to rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him; not on the chance of his not attacking, but rather on the fact that we have made our position unassailable.” Sun Tzu ~ The Art of War

From Dan Brown's Angels and Demons: "Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves."

And from Anne Rice's The Vampire Lestat: "Very few beings really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds – justifications, confirmations, forms of consolation without which they can’t go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind."

Twilight:
"About three things I was absolutely positive about:
First, Edward was a vampire
Secondly, there was a part of him and I didn't know how dominant that part might be, that thirsted for my blood
Thirdly, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him...


Animal Farm
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.


These are my favorite quotes.

"One's conscience can't be ruled by the criterion of the majority". Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Here's one from The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

"Are you casting aspersions on my butt?"

"Oh, Carma, you know I envy it. I just don't think these pants are going to fit over it."

That was a scene between Carmen and Tibby.

Animal Farm
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.


I remember that quote. It was a very suitable end to the book. It makes you think doesn't it?

Some of my favourites are:

"Do me a favour, don't ever bring morality into what we do here."--On the Jellicoe Road, By Melina Marchetta

(I can't exactly remember how this goes...)
"So I guess this is the part where you do the heroic thing and rip off a piece of your shirt to bandage my arm?"
"If you wanted me to rip my clothes off, you should've said so."
--City of Bones, By Cassandra Clare

"Desire is not always lessened by disgust. Nor can it be bestowed like a favour, to those most deserving of it."--City of Ashes, By Cassandra Clare

"To say that Bilbo's breath was taken away is no description at all. There are no words left to express his staggerment, since Men changed the language that they learned of elves in the days when all the world was wonderful."

The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

I've got a few Lord of the Rings quotes by J.R.R. Tolkien

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." - Bilbo Baggins

"Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them?" - Gandalf

"You cannot pass," he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. "I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass." - Gandalf

"The Dark Lord has Nine. But we have One, mightier than they: the White Rider. He has passed through the fire and the abyss, and they shall fear him. We will go where he leads." - Aragorn

Those are just a few of my favourites.

Another Lord of the Rings quote, from Frodo and Sam in The Two Towers:

"I wonder if we'll ever be put into songs or tales."
"What?"
"I wonder if people will ever say, 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring.' And they'll say, 'Yes, that's one of my favorite stories.' 'Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad?' 'Yes, my boy, the most famousest of Hobbits. And that's saying a lot.'"
"Well, you've left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the Brave. 'I want to hear more about Sam. Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam.'"
"Now Mr. Frodo, you shouldn't make fun, I was being serious."
"So was I."

From Dan Brown's Angels and Demons: "Faith is universal. Our specific methods for understanding it are arbitrary. Some of us pray to Jesus, some of us go to Mecca, some of us study subatomic particles. In the end we are all just searching for truth, that which is greater than ourselves."
That's a great quote and an awesome book! :tu: :)

"One's conscience can't be ruled by the criterion of the majority". Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird.
Another brilliant one! :tu:

Some more of my favourite quotes:

"Change is one thing. Acceptance is another."
— The God of Small Things ( Arundhati Roy )

"And there it was again. Another religion turned against itself. Another edifice constructed by the human mind, decimated by human nature."
— The God of Small Things ( Arundhati Roy )

“Midnight has many children; the offspring of Independence were not all human. Violence, corruption, poverty, generals, chaos, greed, and pepperpots…. I had to go into exile to learn that the children of midnight were more varied than I—even I—had dreamed.”
- Midnight's Children ( Salman Rushdie)

All morons hate it when you call them morons - Holden Caulfield
Catcher in the Rye

"The coward dies a thousand deaths, the hero dies but one" - Ernest Hemmingway A Farewell to Arms

:tu:

Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.
--Lois McMaster Bujold, "A Civil Campaign"

This is from The Forbidden Kingdom:

Lu Yan: If one does not attach himself to people and desires, never shall his heart be broken. But then, does he ever truly live? I would rather die a mortal, who has a care for someone, than a man free from his own death.

And another from The Silmarillion:

"Yet the lies that Melkor...sowed in the hearts of Elves and Men are a seed that does not die and cannot be destroyed; and ever and anon it sprouts anew, and will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days."

One of my favourites from The Dresden files, Storm Front

"Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face" :lol:

This Quote is the tagline of the book 'Quiver full of Arrows':

"A Quiver full of arrows with everyone on target."

One of my favourites from The Dresden files, Storm Front

"Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face" :lol:

:rotfl: I've never read the Dresden Files - in fact I know absolutely nothing about them...can someone summarise for me?

I've only just started reading the files - there are many many fans lurking around :) who could tell you what they're all about - they are good for quotes, though. And Jim Butcher has a knack of including other stuff, references to other books etc. to make us smile.

anyway ... favourite quotes ...

"There is no truth, there are only points of view."

and

"Do it today, because tomorrow it might be illegal."

Dang! There are so many quotes out there I love. Here are a few I came up with.

Everything from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :lol:

"If it be now, 'tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all." -Hamlet
(now try saying it fives times fast)

"Because he knows you have to laugh at the things that hurt you just to keep yourself in balance, just to keep the world from running you plumb crazy"- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them." -Catch-22

"Dry goods! What are American dry goods?" asked the Duchess....
"American novels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail. -The Picture of Dorian Gray
:yuhup:

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." -A Tale of Two Cities
:upset:

:rotfl: I've never read the Dresden Files - in fact I know absolutely nothing about them...can someone summarise for me?

It's basically about another wizard named Harry :). But he's a private investigator, really. He deals with more paranormal stuff in the first one, but it becomes more of a adventure after a while. It's set in a world parallel to ours, but unknown to most, there are ghosts and monsters and fairies. And magic, which is usually the trouble. It's a very good series in my opinion.

Another of my favorite quotes is from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy -"The ships hung in the air in much the same way bricks don't" :rotfl:

" If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Over-long, detailed to the point of distraction- and ultimately without a major resolution"- Something Rotten, Jasper Fforde

FireSlytherin
Animal Farm
The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
That's my favourite too. Brilliant stuff :tu:

Also, this one from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
"It is a truth universally acknowledged that a zombie in possession of brains must be in want of more brains."
(Made me lol so I put it in my sig :p

I am Death, not taxes. I turn up only once. - Feet of Clay - T. Pratchett

"As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect." - Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka (and incidentally the most fatally boring book I've ever had the misfortune to be forced to read).

haha. We had to read that in a high school English class. Talk about torturous. It isn't long but the severe lack of any interest made it feel too long. We all complained about it openly in front of the teacher.

"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother." - 1984.

The ending is just so depressing.

'Was democracy then to be a close preserve of those possessing thick skins and loud voices and accommodating consciences? ' - Jawaharlal Nehru in The Discovery of India.

Great quote. Great book :tu:

"Those who do not complain are never pitied..." Mrs. Bennet. Pride and Prejudice.

"Lord, keep my memory green" Charles Dickens.


"A worker may be the hammer's master, but the hammer still prevails. A tool knows exactly how it is meant to be handled, while the user of the tool can only have an approximate idea. " Milan Kundera

"Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory." Milan Kundera

"When the heart speaks, the mind finds it indecent to object. " Milan Kundera

lol I love Milan!

It is honour that will spur men to the most futile, heroic, and stupid extremes out of bravado and machismo, and it is as though they have never heard that the days of Tirant lo Blanc and Don Quixote are long dead.
The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts Louis de Bernières

de Bernières is so wonderful he nearly makes me cry!

"For you; a thousand times over."

The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

:love:

"Or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them." - Hamlet

"We've been caught up. Your smallest actions sets off another somewhere else, and is set off by it. Keep an eye open, an ear cocked. Tread warily, follow instructions. We'll be all right." - Guildenstern (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead)

"We've been caught up. Your smallest actions sets off another somewhere else, and is set off by it. Keep an eye open, an ear cocked. Tread warily, follow instructions. We'll be all right." - Guildenstern (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead)

I love this also. The word play and language in this play is really magnificent.

what can be better then, "All for one and one for all, that is our motto, is it not?" The three musketeers

"We are such stuff as dreams are made on and our little life is rounded with a sleep" - Prospero in "The Tempest" by William Shakespeare. This quote reminded me so much of Dumbledore's: "Death is but the next great adventure" and "To someone as old as Nicholas, dying is like going to sleep at the end of a very long day" (I don't have the book with me so that's probably not word-perfect).

The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts Louis de Bernières

de Bernières is so wonderful he nearly makes me cry!

Agreed! Louis de Bernieres truly is a genius. I've read Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts. Just the amount of sattire that it is evidently possible to cram into one book is phenomenal.

I'm going to add some Wodehouse quotes to the thread :D


Bertie: Tell me, Jeeves, were you always like this, or did it come on suddenly?
Jeeves: Sir?
Bertie: The brain, the gray matter. Were you an outstandingly brilliant child?
Jeeves: My mother thought me intelligent, sir.
Bertie: Well, can't go by that. My mother thought me intelligent

Jeeves: Am I to infer sir, that you might be offering yourself for election?
Bertie: Your inference is as always slap on the button and leading by a length in the final furlong, Jeeves.

Lawyer: Mr. Wooster, for the last and final time, are you going to stop playing that banjolele or not? Mrs. Tinker-Moule is very disturbed by it.
Bertie: No indeed I shall not.
Lawyer: Very well then, you shall hear more of this.
Bertie: And Mrs. Tinker-Moule shall hear more of this (brandishing the banjolele at him)

"Der ganze Strudel strebt nach oben; du glaubst zu schieben und du wirst geschoben."
- from Goethe's "Faust".

The Old Kingdom - Garth Nix:

"So are you saying that somebody went to all the trouble to make you a crypt 10,000 years ago on the off chance that you would show up, walk in, and have a convenient heart attack?" Disreputable Dog

"Choosers will be beggars if the begging’s not their choosing" Disreputable Dog

Lord of the Rings:

I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. - Faramir

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

Is not general incivility the very essence of love?
Pride and Prejudice

"Whenever you feel like criticizing any one," he told me, "just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."

And I hope she'll be a fool — that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.
The Great Gatsby

You couldn't care, or you wouldn't make it. You wouldn't survive.
Pretty Little Dirty (I don't have the book with me, but I think that's correct.)

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
Anna Karenina

This is no world / To play with mammets and to tilt with lips. / We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns, / And pass them current too.
Henry IV: Part 1

From The Lord of the Rings:

"Fair speech may hide a foul heart", Sam Gamgee.

"The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport as you might say." Sam Gamgee.

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens" Gloin the dwarf.

"There are some things that it is better to begin than to refuse, even though the end maybe dark" Aragorn.

From Jane Eyre:
'Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.'

Everything from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

From Life of Pi by Yann Martel:

"Bapu Gandhi said, 'All religions are true.' I just want to love God," I blurted out, and looked down, red in the face.

"I did not count the days or the weeks or the months. Time is an illusion that only makes us pant. I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time."

"Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims."

"The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity — it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud."

"My greatest wish - other than salvation - was to have a book. "

From The Little Prince

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

"You risk tears if you let yourself be tamed."

"People where you live," the little prince said, "grow five thousand roses in one garden... yet they don't find what they're looking for..."

From Fahrenheit 451:

"Why is it," he said, one time, at the subway entrance, "I feel I've known you so many years?"
"Because I like you," she said, "and I don't want anything from you."

"There must be something in books, something we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing."

"We're going to meet a lot of lonely people in the next week and the next month and the next year. And when they ask us what we're doing, you can say, We're remembering. That's where we'll win out in the long run. And someday we'll remember so much that we'll build the biggest goddamn steamshovel in history and dig the biggest grave of all time and shove war in it and cover it up."

"Nobody listens anymore. I can't talk to the walls because they're yelling at me, I can't talk to my wife; she listens to the walls. I just want someone to hear what I have to say. And maybe if I talk long enough it'll make sense. And I want you to teach me to understand what I read."

From Inherit the Wind:

"An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man's knowledge is a greater miracle than all the sticks turned to snakes or the parting of the waters."

"Can't you understand? That if you take a law like evolution and you make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it. And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try to foist your own religion upon the mind of man. If you can do one, you can do the other. Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy, and needs feeding. And soon, your Honor, with banners flying and with drums beating we'll be marching backward, BACKWARD, through the glorious ages of that Sixteenth Century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind"

"I am trying to establish, Your Honor, that Howard-or Colonel Brady-or Charles Darwin-or anyone else in this courtroom-or you, sir-has the right to think!"

The man who has everything figured out is probably a fool. College examinations notwithstanding, it takes a very smart fella to say “I don’t know the answer!”

"You see, I haven’t really thought very much. I was always afraid of what I might think—so it seemed safer not to think at all. But now I know. A thought is like a child inside our body. It has to be born. If it dies inside you, part of you dies too!"

"All motion is relative. Maybe it's you who've moved away by standing still."

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile."
That one rocks. :rotfl:

I can't think of any now. I'll Google some.....

Edit: From Where the Wild Things Are: If I was stranded on a desert island and could only take one thing, it'd be Douglas. We can share him if you want.

From The Chronicles of Narnia:

"There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

"'But what manner of use would it be ploughing through that darkness?' asked Drinian.
'Use?' replied Reepicheep. 'Use, Captain? If you mean by filling our bellies or our purses, I confess it will be no use at all. So far as I know we did not set sail to look for things useful but to seek honour and adventures. And here is as great an adventure as I have ever heard of, and here, if we turn back, no little impeachment of all our honours."

"'It isn't Narnia, you know,' sobbed Lucy. 'It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?'
'But you shall meet me, dear one,' said Aslan.
'Are -are you there too, Sir?' said Edmund.
'I am,' said Aslan. 'But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name. This was the very reason why you were brought to Narnia, that by knowing me here for a little, you may know me better there.'"

"'I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia.'"

From Emma:

"'I cannot make speeches, Emma...If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more. But you know what I am. You hear nothing but truth from me. I have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other woman in England would have borne it.'"

From The Shakespeare Stealer:

"This business of friendship was a curious thing, almost as difficult to learn as the business of acting. Sometimes you were expected to tell the truth, to express your thoughts and your feelings, and then other times what was wanted was a lie, a bit of disguise."

"There once was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."I love that one! I posted it in the Best Opening Lines thread. :D

From To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) :

"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing." - Scout Finch

"Shoot all the bluejays you want, if can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird." - Atticus Finch

Eclipse (Stephenie Meyer):

"I was the natural path your life would have taken... If the world was how it was supposed to be, if there were no monsters and no magic..." - Jacob Black

Lock & Key (Sarah Dessen):

"Funny how such a beautiful song could tell such a sad story"

"Women have served all these centuries as looking-glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.”

A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf

"Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with the absolute truth."

The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir

These are my absolutely most favourite quotes of all time.

And a longish one which moved me to tears when I first read it in high school:

"'My son, I am an old man, and in the winter of my days, and I know that many evil things are done in the wide world. The fierce robbers come down from the mountains, and carry off the little children, and sell them to the Moors. The lions lie in wait for the caravans, and leap upon the camels. The wild boar roots up the corn in the valley, and the foxes gnaw the vines upon the hill. The pirates lay waste the sea-coast and burn the ships of the fishermen, and take their nets from them. In the salt-marshes live the lepers; they have houses of wattled reeds, and none may come nigh them. The beggars wander through the cities, and eat their food with the dogs. Canst thou make these things not to be? Wilt thou take the leper for thy bedfellow, and set the beggar at thy board? Shall the lion do thy bidding, and the wild boar obey thee? Is not He who made misery wiser than thou art? Wherefore I praise thee not for this that thou hast done, but I bid thee ride back to the Palace and make thy face glad, and put on the raiment that beseemeth a king, and with the crown of gold I will crown thee, and the sceptre of pearl will I place in thy hand. And as for thy dreams, think no more of them. The burden of this world is too great for one man to bear, and the world's sorrow too heavy for one heart to suffer.'

'Sayest thou that in this house?' said the young King, and he strode past the Bishop, and climbed up the steps of the altar, and stood before the image of Christ."

The Young King by Oscar Wilde

"I looked up, and we were in this giant dome, like a glass snowball, and Mark said that the amazing white stars were really only holes in the black glass of the dome, and when you went to heaven, the glass broke away, and there was nothing but a whole sheet of star white, which is brighter than anything but doesn't hurt your eyes. It was vast and open and thinly quiet, and I felt so small."
--The Perks of Being a Wallflower

From Inkheart:

Mortimer: "She'll (Elinor) probably end up poor as a church mouse because she spends so much money on books. I think she'd sell her soul to the devil without thinking twice if he offered her the right book for it " :lol:.

From the Kite Runner
For you, a thousand times over.

The Chronicles of Narnia

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver; "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

“One day you’ll see him and another you won’t. He doesn’t like being tied down-and of course he has other countries to attend to. It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you musn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.”

"But that’s just the point,” groaned Bree. “Do Talking Horses roll? Supposing they don’t? I can’t bear to give it up. What do you think, Hwin?”
“I’m going to roll anyway,” said Hwin. “I don’t suppose any of them will care two lumps of sugar whether you roll or not."

Winnie the Pooh

“You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.”

"If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together.. there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we’re apart.. I’ll always be with you."



And really anything from The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle and All Creatures Great and Small.

From Love, Stargirl:

“At the age of ten, every boy in the world should be turned upside down and a worm should be dropped into each nostril.” ~ Mr. Caraway, Stargirl's father. This one made me laugh so much, :lol:.

“Live today. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow. Just today. Inhabit your moments. Don’t rent them out to tomorrow.
[...]
Today is calling to you, trying to get your attention, but you’re stuck on tomorrow, and today trickles away like water down a drain. You wake up the next morning and that today that you wasted is gone forever. It’s now yesterday. Some of those moments may have had wonderful things in store for you, but now you’ll never know.” ~ Betty Lou, Stargirl's neighbour.

From Peony In Love;

"My grandmother told me my mother was a poet. But I didn't know she was the greatest of all."

It's...a roundabout story. But I cry every time.

Some of my favourite quotes from Manu Joseph's brilliant Serious Men:

'In the twilight that was now the colour of dust, in the fury of horns that was a national language because honking had telegraphic properties..'

'The dedication of passwords was the new fellowship of marriage. To each other, couples had become furtive asterisks.'


'A mysterious character of UFOs is that they are sighted only in the First World,' she said, 'and no alien conquest of Earth begins until the mayor of New York holds an emergency press conference. When Mars attacks, it attacks America.'

From the princess bride
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die."

Game of thrones
"In the game of thrones, you win or you die"
“A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.”

The brilliant A Passage to India by EM Forster has too many wonderful, insightful, witty quotes. Here are some of my favourites:

''There's nothing in India but the weather, my dear mother; it's the alpha and omega of the whole affair."

"Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate. Adventures do occur, but not punctually."

"We're out here to do justice and keep the peace. Them's my sentiments. India isn't a drawing-room."

"Your sentiments are those of a god," [Mrs. Moore] said quietly, but it was his manner rather than his sentiments that annoyed her.

Trying to recover his temper, [Ronny] said, "India likes gods."

"And Englishmen like posing as gods."

"The world, [Fielding] believed, is a globe of men who are trying to reach one another and can best do so by the help of good will plus culture and intelligence."

Eat Pray Love is littered with fantastic quotes, both heartfelt and fun:

"Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be."

"Tis' better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else's perfectly."

"There’s a crack (or cracks) in everyone…that’s how the light of God gets in."

"God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies..."

"People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you're fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly."

"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life."

There's one I really like from a Jodi Picoult book:

"Sometimes I think the human heart is just a simple shelf. There's only so much you can pile onto it before something falls off an edge and you are left to pick up the pieces."

I just HAD to put these here!! All from Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre. :love:

"Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour...If at my convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?"

"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you, - and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you!"

"Jane, I never meant to wound you thus...Will you ever forgive me?"

Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot."

"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you — especially when you are near to me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land, come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapped; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly."

:love::love::love::love::love: There are way too many. :lol:

I liked this quote from Gone by Micheal Grant:

Everyone was just killing time. But if all they did was kill time, time would end up killing them.