jobean
First novel published
Posts: 2,479
|
Post by jobean on Feb 15, 2008 5:36:13 GMT -5
We're reading Hamlet aloud in class, and there are some phrases which got basically the whole class giggling and we're like... 17 to 18 years old. "Tender yourself more dearly, or - not to crack the wind" and "Come hither, gentlemen, And lay your hands again upon my sword". And something about a woodcock.
But also I liked Victor Hugo's "Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved" from Les Miserables and Helen Fielding's "It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as one part of your life starts looking up, another falls to pieces" from Bridget Jones' Diary.
|
|
Isa
Administrator
Posts: 6,995
|
Post by Isa on Feb 15, 2008 13:22:39 GMT -5
Come hither, gentlemen, And lay your hands again upon my sword ;D No wonder so many people think Shakespeare was gay!
|
|
|
Post by mockingbrid on Feb 15, 2008 15:07:56 GMT -5
"Freedom so often means that one isn't needed anywhere. Here you are an individual, you have a background of your own, you would be missed. But off there in the cities there are thousands of rolling stones like me. We are all alike; we have no ties, we know nobody, we own nothing." O Pioneers! byWilla Cather
|
|
Michelle
First novel published
Posts: 2,563
|
Post by Michelle on Feb 15, 2008 21:18:20 GMT -5
"Men of fifty don't dance mazurkas, being generally too fat and wheezy." Barchester Towers
|
|
|
Post by Hanna on Feb 19, 2008 16:47:37 GMT -5
I found this in Agatha Christie's autobiography: "Life seems to me to consist of three parts: the absorbing and usually enjoyable present which rushes on from minute to minute with fatal speed; the future, dim and uncertain, for which one can make any number of interesting plans, the wilder and the more improbable the better, since - as nothing will turn out as you expect it to do - you might as well have the fun of planning anyway; and thirdly, the past, the memories and realities that are the bedrock of one's present life, brought back suddenly by a scent, the shape of a hill, an old song - some triviality that makes on suddenly say "I remember..." with a peculiar and quite unexplainable pleasure."
I just thought it was pretty...
|
|
|
Post by pixie on Mar 21, 2008 2:36:45 GMT -5
"A minority, even a minority of one doesn't make you wrong." 1984
"I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in this hand. it's when you know you are licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what." To Kill a Mockingbird
"Purpose is but the slave to memory, of violent birth but poor validity" Hamlet
"A tale told by an idiot, fully of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Macbeth
"There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome." Pride & Prejudice
|
|
lindsay
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us." - Franz Kafka
Posts: 741
|
Post by lindsay on Mar 21, 2008 11:07:53 GMT -5
"What fresh hell is this?" Dorothy Parker. Not a quote from a book but I love it so much I had to share it with everyone not familiar with Mrs. Parker!
|
|
|
Post by Hanna on Jun 5, 2008 4:52:40 GMT -5
I found this really cool sentence in August 1914, I just thought it was such an awesome describtion: "Just as a jar of sunflower-seed oil, shaken until it is cloudy, needs to stand for a while for the dregs to settle to the bottom and for the rest to regain its sunny, transparent colour with a few bubbles floating on the top, so Samsonov longed for some peace and quiet to clearify his mind."
|
|
Kristie
Novel turned into BBC miniseries
"If a book is well written, I always find it too short."
Posts: 7,214
|
Post by Kristie on Jul 9, 2008 10:27:20 GMT -5
"Ignoring isn't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it." -Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid's Tale
|
|
Halie
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
Posts: 982
|
Post by Halie on Mar 28, 2009 23:54:20 GMT -5
I know some of these have been previously mentioned, I was looking through my quote book (and I'm incredibly bored...) and I thought that I'd post a few (okay, all) of my favorites. These are all ones that I've personally come across in my readings. Of course, I've collected other quotes by famous authors, but I haven't found them while reading and thought, "I love that." - Sixteen years on the streets and you can learn a lot. But all the wrong things, not the things you want to learn. Sixteen years on the streets and you see a lot. But all the wrong sights, not the sights you want to see. -- S.E. Hinton (The Outsiders)
- Memory is an abstract painting -- it does not present things as they are, but rather as they feel. -- Eugenia Collier (Marigolds (short story))
- The final forming of a person's character lies in their own hands. -- Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank)
- Whoever is happy will make others happy too. -- Anne Frank (The Diary of Anne Frank)
- Sleep tight. Don't worry 'bout the bogeymen; I've fumigated under the bed. -- Rebecca Wells (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood)
- We want to remember, and we want to be remembered. That's why we paint. -- Maureen Johnson (Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes)
- Men are like shoes. A couple is a left and a right foot, and out there is your perfect fit. Sometimes you need to change styles and shop around to find it. Sometimes you have to break styles in, sometimes you feel like something is unstylish but comfortable, and sometimes a style -- as much as you like it -- just doesn't suit you and will never fit. -- Camilla Morton (How to Walk in High Heels)
- You can't experience being alive without realizing that you have to die. -- Jostein Gaarder (Sophie's World)
- If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn't understand it. -- Jostein Gaarder (Sophie's World)
- Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. -- Ann Brashares (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants)
- Fair is foul and foul is fair. -- William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
- Invention, it must be admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the materials must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substance, but it cannot bring into being the substance itself. -- Mary Shelley (Frankenstein forward)
- The question holds a power that is lost in the answer. -- Elie Wiesel (Night)
- A fondness for reading must be an education in itself. -- Jane Austen (Mansfield Park)
- Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity to what we would have others think of us. -- Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
- To yield without conviction is no complement to understanding. -- Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
- I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the words which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun. -- Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
- Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all of the people in this world haven't had the advantages you've had. -- F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby)
- Familiarity bleeds images of their shock value. -- Ann Landi (some book about either Andy Warhol/pop art in general, I forget the title.)
- Among the great world cities, Paris has the distinction of conveying its essece immediately to anyone who arrives with an open mind. -- Alex Karmel (A Corner in the Marais)
- France is like a maddening, moodly lover who inspires emotional highs and lows. -- Sarah Turnbull (Almost French)
- Before you, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars -- points of light and reason. ...And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn't see the stars anymore. -- Stephenie Meyer (New Moon -- I know I've expressed my dislike for Twilight before but I actually really like that passage.)
- The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face. Frown at it and it will in turn look sourly upon you; laugh at it and with it and it is a jolly, kind companion. -- William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair)
- Are not there little chapters in everybody's life, that seem to be nothing, and yet affect all the rest of history? -- William Makepeace Thackeray (Vanity Fair)
- One can forgive but one should never forget -- Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis)
- I consider that a man's brain is originally like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded up or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing is his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forged something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out useful ones. -- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (A Study in Scarlet)
- No, with a poem or any work of art we can never say 'in other words.' If it is a work of art there are no other words... Yes, sir. That's why it's a work of art in the first place. -- Alan Bennett (The History Boys)
- The best moments in reading are when you come across something -- a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things -- that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours. -- Alan Bennett (The History Boys)
- When a child first catches adults out -- when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just -- his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing. -- John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
- I eat stories like grapes. -- John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
- Some children want to be babies and some want to be adults. Few are content with their age. -- John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
- It's the most extraordinary instrument I've ever come across. A mere breath is enough to set it vibrating. But the music it makes is so strange, that to hear it once is to be changed forever. It is like taking a drought of pure happiness. Once you have tasted it, you are never the same again. -- Maxence Fermine (The Black Violin)
- There is nothing worse than having been truly happy once in your life. From that moment on, everything makes you sad, even the most insignificant things -- Maxence Fermine (The Black Violin)
- We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course. -- Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
Of course, I don't expect anyone to read all or even any of these. This is probably the longest post in RBC history. Sometimes it's just nice to share things that are important to you.
|
|
|
Post by Pilleriin on Mar 29, 2009 2:26:16 GMT -5
I just read all of them. And they're all really great. You also had my all time favorite quote : [/li][li]The best moments in reading are when you come across something -- a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things -- that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours. -- Alan Bennett (The History Boys) [/quote] I love it!
|
|
Lu
Administrator
Posts: 5,469
|
Post by Lu on Apr 9, 2009 15:54:21 GMT -5
I just read all of them. And they're all really great. You also had my all time favorite quote : [/li][li]The best moments in reading are when you come across something -- a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things -- that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours. -- Alan Bennett (The History Boys) [/quote] I love it! [/quote] Me too
|
|
Halie
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
Posts: 982
|
Post by Halie on Jun 4, 2009 23:00:10 GMT -5
"Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and change it to you to a kind of wisdom. His mind had no horizon -- and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, "I really must do something for Doc."
-- Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
|
|
|
Post by Hanna on Sept 7, 2009 4:28:54 GMT -5
This is from an essay by Edward Young about reading fiction:
"We are at the writer's mercy; on the strong wing of his imagination, we are snatched from Britain to Italy, from climate to climate, from pleasure to pleasure; we have no home, no thought, of our own; till the magician drops his pen." Conjectures on Original Composition
|
|
|
Post by Steph on Sept 9, 2009 19:04:21 GMT -5
There are some really amazing quotes in this thread! I love reading them, it makes me want to read all the books that they are from! Two of my favorites: "The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww'" - On the Road - Jack Kerouac "I met an old lady once, almost a hundred years old, and she told me, 'There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. How much do you love me, and Who's in charge?'" - Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
|
|