Great quotes in literature

[Chaos]

I originally intended to start a literature quote quiz, like the movie quote one, but I figured that would be too difficult.

So let´s just have a "greatest quotes in literature" thread.

Please state the quote, (and perhaps an explanation of the context) title, and author. All genres, fiction and non-fiction alike, are allowed.

Some of my favorites:

"Not bad. But next time, try to leave the vendor alive."
(Trying to teach a barbarian how to shop)
Interesting Times
Terry Pratchett

"If you think this is heresy, wait until I´m finished."
(the reforming of a mystic order)
Dark Destiny
Michael Stackpole

"A hawk and a dove do not fly together - except if the hawk is hungry."
Polgara the Sorceress
David Eddings

 

[Hexxenhammer]

"Satan receive my soul. Jesus is a fink."
Alex Hergeshiemer in Heinlein's "Job"

 

[Jabberwock]

"And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

-F.Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

 

[Brian]

"All right, then, I'll GO to hell"--and tore it up."
Huckleberry Finn
-Mark Twain

Doesn't seem like much, but when read in context and you understand what decision has convinced Huck that he's going to burn in hell, and he makes it anyway, it's beautiful thing.

That's one of the greatest books in American Literature and I recommend it to everybody.

 

[Phil]

I just read these words a few seconds before finding this thread. And I think they fit so well the personality of these forums:

"That day, I began to be incredulous.

Or, rather, I regretted having been credulous. I regretted having allowed myself to be borne away by a passion of the mind. Such is credulity."

--- Umberto Eco

Foucault's Pendulum

 

[Soapy Sam]

That's one of the greatest books in American Literature and I recommend it to everybody.


Brian, I agree, except insofar as the word "American" is superfluous in this particular case.

 

[SteveW]

From hell's heart I stab at thee.

- Moby Dick (or Star Trek II, depending on your literacy level).

 

[Brian]

From hell's heart I stab at thee.

- Moby Dick (or Star Trek II, depending on your literacy level).

Also from that book...
"I would strike the sun if it offended me."
-Ahab

 

[Sane]

From hell's heart I stab at thee.

- Moby Dick (or Star Trek II, depending on your literacy level).

Or The Simpson's. Shows you just where my literacy level lies.

 

[Johnny Pneumatic]

"If his chest had been a canon he would have shot his heart upon it."-Moby Dick

"The things' hollow, it goes on forever and oh- my god, its full of stars!"-2001: A Space Odyssey

 

[LucyR]

Have you noticed that most of our poor American friends always choose the same few writers when it comes to these sort of threads?

 

[epepke]

Have you noticed that most of our poor American friends always choose the same few writers when it comes to these sort of threads?

Have you noticed that this thread has only ten responses, including mine?

 

[LucyR]

6 out of 8 is significant wouldn't you say? Particularly when one is aware that a similar distribution may be found in umpteen similar threads.

 

[Some Friggin Guy]

A douche of spray blinded my brother for a moment.
When his eyes were clear again he saw the monster had
passed and was rushing landward. Big iron upperworks rose
out of this headlong structure, and from that twin funnels
projected and spat a smoking blast shot with fire. It was the
torpedo ram, THUNDER CHILD, steaming headlong, coming to
the rescue of the threatened shipping.

War of the Worlds.

I'm not sure why, but this passage always hits me when I read this.

 

[Sane]

Also from HG Wells. This Invisible Man passage always stuck with me...

Adye moistened his lips again. He glanced away from the barrel of the revolver and saw the sea far off very blue and dark under the midday sun, the smooth green down, the white cliff of the Head, and the multitudinous town, and suddenly he knew that life was very sweet. His eyes came back to this little metal thing hanging between heaven and earth, six yards away. “What am I to do?” he said sullenly.

Life is sweet.

 

[Phil]

Have you noticed that most of our poor American friends always choose the same few writers when it comes to these sort of threads?

No, I haven't noticed. But then I haven't been involved in other similar threads.

I have noticed, however, that generalizing in such a manner can make one seem pretentious and snooty in any thread. Have you noticed that?

 

[wollery]

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

I'm not generally a great fan of Dickens, but this is one of the best book openings I've ever read.

 

[SteveW]

Have you noticed that most of our poor American friends always choose the same few writers when it comes to these sort of threads?

Maybe it's because Melville is a far greater writer than any of the poop that ever came out of your country?

 

[LucyR]

Maybe it's because Melville is a far greater writer than any of the poop that ever came out of your country?

Probably, yes.

Methinks I touched a nerve.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kahn, daruber muB mann schweigen", Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Oh... My German is even worse than my French... Sorry if I completely butchered the quoted, Ludwig's name, and the title of his work.

edit Not only that, but I don't know what the default font is on JREF, so I can't get the German character for 'ss' to work. Sorry about using the capital B as a substitute.