Literary Quotes (1 Viewer)

[Seven]

Yes, this one's for all you guys out there who read books. And I'm talking about actual books, not Harry Potter or anything.

What's the idea? Well, find interesting quotes and put them here along with some brief explanation. Why I'd like it? I like to get to know new authors and books.

I'll start of with the very first lines of books by Hemingway, who I only recently have begun to admire, and Marquez.

"Robert Cohn was once middleweight boxing champion of Princeton. Do not think that I am very much impressed by that as a boxing title, but it meant a lot to Cohn." - this is how The Sun Also Rises begins. What's astonishing about it is that the characters are immediately clear. We know what Robert Cohn's like and we know what the I-character's like.

"The year I turned ninety, I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin." . - thus says Marquez in Memories Of My Melancholy Whores. I must admit I'm not a big fan of his, even though he has written some excellent novels, but this is one hell of a line.

I love great first lines, but any quote will do really. Enjoy.

 

Buy on AliExpress.com

[Rami]

I don't know if you consider this a "real" book,7, but I am reading "Brilliant Orange" by David Winner. It's about Dutch Football. I like this one:

Vic Buckingham is quoted saying this:

to make a good football team, you need a mixture of good players who get on mentally and physically. It's about though in football. When you see a big fellow going into a tackle, don't go and help him. Thats a good player's instinct. If you're good, you know the big fellow will win the ball 0 and he does. So you've saved that fraction of energy you would have wasted helping him.

I am sure this wasn't what you were looking for, but I just read it two hours ago, and found your thread.

 

[Red]

I don't know if you consider this a "real" book,7, but I am reading "Brilliant Orange" by David Winner. It's about Dutch Football. I like this one:

Vic Buckingham is quoted saying this:



I am sure this wasn't what you were looking for, but I just read it two hours ago, and found your thread.

Good book that.

 

[Bjerknes]

I read far more maps than books, but these are a few quotes from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky that I thought were interesting.

For broad understanding and deep feeling, you need pain and suffering. I believe really great men must experience great sadness in the world.

You know what kind of man I think you are? You're the kind of man who would stand there and smile at his torturers while they were tearing out his guts.

Although Pulcheria Alexandrovna was forty-three, she still showed traces of her former beauty and seemed much younger than her years. This is generally true of women who remain serene in spirit, fresh in their impressions, and spontaneously warmhearted right to the edge of old age. One might add that in this way, and only in this way, they retain their beauty in old age too.

 

[ReBeL]

Nice thread, Seven.

The quote that had its impact on my whole life was this one:

It's a novel about people who were so desperate to go to Arab Gulf countries in the mid 50s of last century. They didn't have any way to arrive there except sitting inside a water tank while the temperature was around 50. Anyway, I really liked the description when the driver reaches his destination and opens the cover of the tank to find them dead:

As he returned to the lorry and lifted one leg up, a sudden thought flashed into his mind. He stood rigid in his place, trying to do or say something. He thought of shouting, but immediately realised what a stupid idea that was. He tried to finish climbing into the lorry, but didn’t feel strong enough. He thought that his head would explode. All the exhaustion which he felt suddenly rose in his hands and began to pull his hair to expel the thought. But it was still there, huge and resounding, unshakeable and inescapable. He turned to look back to where he had left the corpses, but he could see nothing, and that glance simply set the thought ablaze so that it began to burn in his mind. All at once he could no longer keep it within his head, and he dropped his hands to his sides and stared into the darkness with his eyes wide open.

The thought slipped from his mind and ran onto his tongue: “Why didn’t they knock on the sides of the tank?” He turned right round once, but he was afraid he would fall, so he climbed into his seat and leaned his head on the wheel.

“Why didn’t you knock on the sides of the tank? Why didn’t you say anything? Why?”

The desert suddenly began to send back the echo:

“Why didn’t you knock on the sides of the tank? Why didn’t you bang the sides of the tank? Why? Why? Why?”

It was a smart motivation for a rebellion.

 

[3pac]

The sun also rises? you bloody alcoholic

 

[3pac]

I like this one from Confessions of an Heiress, by Paris Hilton.

"Never have only one cell phone when you can have many. Lose one all the time. That way, if you haven't called someone back, you can blame it on the lost phone. It's very important to get a new model the minute it comes out. Nokias, Ericksons, Motorolas - those are the coolest. Always have at least two numbers: a friend line and a business line." Chapter 1, pg. 11

It really shows us how fucking stupid people with blonde hair are.

 

[Bjerknes]

Believe it or not, George isn't at home.
Please leave a message at the beep.
I must be out, or I'd pick up the phone.
Where could I be?
Believe it or not, I'm not home.

I like this one from Confessions of an Heiress, by Paris Hilton.

"Never have only one cell phone when you can have many. Lose one all the time. That way, if you haven't called someone back, you can blame it on the lost phone. It's very important to get a new model the minute it comes out. Nokias, Ericksons, Motorolas - those are the coolest. Always have at least two numbers: a friend line and a business line." Chapter 1, pg. 11

It really shows us how fucking stupid people with blonde hair are.

God, I hate that dumb bitch.

 

[Red]

I read far more maps than books, but these are a few quotes from Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky that I thought were interesting.

QUOTE]

Found any treasure yet?

What sort of map and what is the interest in it?

 

[ßöмßäяðîëя]

Maps of the Human Heart.

I like these quotes by my favorite author:

1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions


Showing quotations 1 to 30 of 32 total Next Page ->
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Kurt Vonnegut


I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Kurt Vonnegut


If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Kurt Vonnegut


Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand

Kurt Vonnegut

 

[Bjerknes]

Found any treasure yet?

What sort of map and what is the interest in it?

Many sorts of maps. Not only topographic maps and maps of countries, but especially weather maps. Come on, man. Everyone knows I'm the forum meteorologist/climatologist/weather risk manager.

 

[ßöмßäяðîëя]

I'll risk your weather against my nutsack.....

Whatta ya say?

 

[Lawnchair Bes]

Maps of the Human Heart.

I like these quotes by my favorite author:

1492. As children we were taught to memorize this year with pride and joy as the year people began living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America. Actually, people had been living full and imaginative lives on the continent of North America for hundreds of years before that. 1492 was simply the year sea pirates began to rob, cheat, and kill them.

Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions


Showing quotations 1 to 30 of 32 total Next Page ->
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.

Kurt Vonnegut


I want to stay as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.

Kurt Vonnegut


If you can do a half-assed job of anything, you're a one-eyed man in a kingdom of the blind.

Kurt Vonnegut


Those who believe in telekinetics, raise my hand

Kurt Vonnegut

damn you, i was gonna do that


Just because some of us can read and write and do a little math, that doesn't mean we deserve to conquer the Universe.

* Bergeron's epitaph for the planet, I remember, which he said should be carved in big letters in a wall of the Grand Canyon for the flying-saucer people to find, was this:
WE COULD HAVE SAVED IT
BUT WE WERE TOO DOGGONE CHEAP
Only he didn't say 'doggone.'"

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

I asked this heroic pet lover how it felt to have died for a schnauzer named Teddy. Salvador Biagiani was philosophical. He said it sure beat dying for absolutely nothing in the Viet Nam War.

George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.

Doesn't anything socialistic make you want to throw up? Like great public schools, or health insurance for all?

 

[Dinsdale]

Once as I came into the tavern, another guest had already sat on my observation-place. I didn’t dare to look too closely and wanted to turn right around at the door and go away. But the guest called on me, and it turned out that he too was a servant, and I had seen him before somewhere, without having spoken to him until now.

“Why do you want to run away? Sit down and have a drink. I’ll pay for it.” So then I took a seat. He asked me some questions, but I couldn’t answer them, I didn’t even understand the questions. So I said: “Maybe you’re sorry now to have invited me, so I’ll just go,” and I wanted to get up already. But he stretched his hand over the table over to me and pushed me down: “Stay,” he said, ” that was just a test. Who cannot answer the questions, has passed the test."

Kafka - The Test (Die Prufung)

 

[Seven]

"Christ never came this far, nor did time, nor the individual soul, nor hope, nor the relation of cause to effect, nor reason nor history."

This is how Carlo Levi describes Basilicata (Southern Italy) in his book 'Cristo si è fermato a Eboli', and I think that's exactly what Basilicata must have been like in the 30's. Things never changed, things simply existed.

 

[tonykart]

I like this one from Confessions of an Heiress, by Paris Hilton.

"Never have only one cell phone when you can have many. Lose one all the time. That way, if you haven't called someone back, you can blame it on the lost phone. It's very important to get a new model the minute it comes out. Nokias, Ericksons, Motorolas - those are the coolest. Always have at least two numbers: a friend line and a business line." Chapter 1, pg. 11

It really shows us how fucking stupid people with blonde hair are.

A business line? I wasn't sure if she was joking at first, but then I realized how delusional she is. A business line. What type of business does a professional leech do?

 

[tonykart]

In this book there are so many important stories. I picked one of my favorites.

"Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the Lord had respect unto Abel and to his offering: But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him. And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother’s keeper? And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground. And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother’s blood from thy hand; When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth. And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. Be hold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me. And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him."
- Genesis Chapter 4, Verses 6-16

"For they have sewn the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind"
- Hosea Chapter 8, Verse 7

 

[Henry]

The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed—would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper—the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you.

-1984

…to do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There wasa word for it in Newspeak: ownlife…

-1984

Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

-Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The world must be all fucked up when men travel first class and literature goes as freight.

-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez


from books I've read/re-read recently
[/FONT]

 

[Red]

Damn. I was going put up stuff from 1984.

 

[Henry]

there are still lots of great quotes from it....so much of it is quotable. wonderful book