OT: Best Quotes From Your Favorite Books

[loki604]

Ready to go on another book buying spree and would love some suggestions, but language tends to persuade me more than synopses, so please post some of the best quotes from your favorite books.

Here's a couple from one of my favorite books, The Unbearable Lightness of Being:

"'Noise has one advantage. It drowns out words.'” And suddenly he realized that all his life he had done nothing but talk, write, lecture, concoct sentences, search for formulations and amend them, so in the end no words were precise, their meanings were obliterated, their content lost, they turned into trash, chaff, dust, sand; prowling through his brain, tearing at his head, they were his insomnia, his illness. And what he yearned for at that moment, vaguely but with all his might, was unbounded music, absolute sound, a pleasant and happy all-encompassing, overpowering, window-rattling din to engulf once and for all, the pain, the futility, the vanity of words."



"I used to admire believers", Tomas continued. "I thought they had an odd transcendental way of perceiving things which was closed to me. Like clairvoyants, you might say. But my son's experience proves that faith is actually quite a simple matter. He was down and out, the Catholics took him in, and before he knew it, he had faith. So it was gratitude that decided the issue, most likely. Human decisions are terribly simple."


Can anyone recommend some books using quotes please? Thanks!

 

[BOSSMANPC]

"I do not like green eggs and ham".

 

[Winged_Wheel88]

"I do not like green eggs and ham".

 

[BOSSMANPC]

Even tho most people don't think so I am smarter than that.

 

[BOSSMANPC]

BTW my reading tends to be political and males rights and I will not talk about it here.

 

[Winged_Wheel88]

My tastes differ so differently from loki's, I too will refrain from boring her with my suggestions.

 

[johnnytata]

i know this is a long one, but i love it, and this book is beautifully written. amazing imagery. a fairy tale kind of quality but with amazing gravity, one of my favorite books:


"Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishing frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain.

And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is."
— Mark Helprin (Winter's Tale)

 

[loki604]

i know this is a long one, but i love it, and this book is beautifully written. amazing imagery. a fairy tale kind of quality but with amazing gravity, one of my favorite books:


"Nothing is random, nor will anything ever be, whether a long string of perfectly blue days that begin and end in golden dimness, the most seemingly chaotic political acts, the rise of a great city, the crystalline structure of a gem that has never seen the light, the distributions of fortune, what time the milkman gets up, the position of the electron, or the occurrence of one astonishing frigid winter after another. Even electrons, supposedly the paragons of unpredictability, are tame and obsequious little creatures that rush around at the speed of light, going precisely where they are supposed to go. They make faint whistling sounds that when apprehended in varying combinations are as pleasant as the wind flying through a forest, and they do exactly as they are told. Of this, one is certain.

And yet, there is a wonderful anarchy, in that the milkman chooses when to arise, the rat picks the tunnel into which he will dive when the subway comes rushing down the track from Borough Hall, and the snowflake will fall as it will. How can this be? If nothing is random, and everything is predetermined, how can there be free will? The answer to that is simple. Nothing is predetermined, it is determined, or was determined, or will be determined. No matter, it all happened at once, in less than an instant, and time was invented because we cannot comprehend in one glance the enormous and detailed canvas that we have been given - so we track it, in linear fashion piece by piece. Time however can be easily overcome; not by chasing the light, but by standing back far enough to see it all at once. The universe is still and complete. Everything that ever was is; everything that ever will be is - and so on, in all possible combinations. Though in perceiving it we image that it is in motion, and unfinished, it is quite finished and quite astonishingly beautiful. In the end, or rather, as things really are, any event, no matter how small, is intimately and sensibly tied to all others. All rivers run full to the sea; those who are apart are brought together; the lost ones are redeemed; the dead come back to life; the perfectly blue days that have begun and ended in golden dimness continue, immobile and accessible; and, when all is perceived in such a way as to obviate time, justice becomes apparent not as something that will be, but something that is."
— Mark Helprin (Winter's Tale)

That's awesome. I looked it up and it sounds like something up my alley. I will have to get that one. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[johnnytata]

That's awesome. I looked it up and it sounds like something up my alley. I will have to get that one. Thanks for the recommendation.

yeah, a seriously well written book. i fell in love with new york city reading this book, and the first time i walked into grand central station after reading it, i was mesmerized. i just sat on the stairs, i don't even know how long, and soaked it all in.

if you do read this book, you'll know what i mean.


maybe i'll read it again sometime soon.

 

[BostonAJ]

"There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. . . . You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . .

And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . . .

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."

-Hunter S. Thompson

 

[KillerVee]

Meh. I want to quote one of my favorite short stories "People Like That are the Only People Here" but I can't find the full text online.

 

[sbb122]

"But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?"
- Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet On The Western Front


"We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God's sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they'd allowed to wither in themselves"
Boys Life-Robert McCammon

 

[SLY]

I don't read much. But when I do, I tend to read books that analyze the human psyche. And if not that, then political or poetic.

If I were to make a suggestion (sorry I can't find any text online)

The Avatars by George William Russell

Here is a sample of his poems George William Russell Poems and Poetry

 

[dare2be]

Most of my books I have read recently have the quote "Beam me up, Scotty"

-dare2bemeup

 

[Comeds]

"We all start out knowing magic. We are born with whirlwinds, forest fires, and comets inside us. We are born able to sing to birds and read the clouds and see our destiny in grains of sand. But then we get the magic educated right out of our souls. We get it churched out, spanked out, washed out, and combed out. We get put on the straight and narrow and told to be responsible. Told to act our age. Told to grow up, for God's sake. And you know why we were told that? Because the people doing the telling were afraid of our wildness and youth, and because the magic we knew made them ashamed and sad of what they'd allowed to wither in themselves"
Boys Life-Robert McCammon

I was a big fan of the old McCammon stuff.

 

[pixburgher66]

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. ~Harper Lee
When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't go. I'm too worried to go. I don't want to interrupt my worrying to go. ~J.D. Salinger
I like Catcher in the Rye, and I think that quote is so honestly funny.

 

[dare2be]

When I really worry about something, I don't just fool around. I even have to go to the bathroom when I worry about something. Only, I don't go. I'm too worried to go. I don't want to interrupt my worrying to go. ~J.D. Salinger
I like Catcher in the Rye, and I think that quote is so honestly funny.

LOL so true. But when I gotta go, I gotta go.

 

[puckhead]

Rudyard Kipling - The man who would be king:

_This Contract between me and you persuing witnesseth in the name of
God--Amen and so forth.

(One) That me and you will settle this matter together: _i.e._,
to be Kings of Kafiristan.

(Two) That you and me will not, while this matter is being settled,
look at any Liquor, nor any Woman, black, white or brown, so
as to get mixed up with one or the other harmful.

(Three) That we conduct ourselves with dignity and discretion, and
if one of us gets into trouble the other will stay by him.

Signed by you and me this day.

Peachey Taliaferro Carnehan.
Daniel Dravot.
Both Gentlemen at Large._


and later *spoilers*

The King lost his head, so he did, all along o' one of
those cunning rope-bridges. Kindly let me have the paper-cutter, Sir. It
tilted this way. They marched him a mile across that snow to a rope-bridge
over a ravine with a river at the bottom. You may have seen such. They
prodded him behind like an ox. 'Damn your eyes!' says the King. 'D'you
suppose I can't die like a gentleman?' He turns to Peachey--Peachey that
was crying like a child. 'I've brought you to this, Peachey,' says he.
'Brought you out of your happy life to be killed in Kafiristan, where you
was late Commander-in-Chief of the Emperor's forces. Say you forgive me,
Peachey.' 'I do,' says Peachey. 'Fully and freely do I forgive you, Dan.'
'Shake hands, Peachey,' says he. 'I'm going now.' Out he goes, looking
neither right nor left, and when he was plumb in the middle of those dizzy
dancing ropes, 'Cut, you beggars,' he shouts; and they cut, and old Dan
fell, turning round and round and round twenty thousand miles, for he took
half an hour to fall till he struck the water, and I could see his body
caught on a rock with the gold crown close beside.

 

[puckhead]

John Kennedy Toole - The Confederacy of Dunces.
don't know why, but this passage just makes me chuckle....

This, I should have known, was too much for his literal and sausage-like mind. … We lunged about in the garage like tow swashbucklers in an especially inept historical film for several moments, fork and cutlass clicking against each other madly. Realizing that my plastic weapon was hardly a match for a long fork wielded by a maddened Methuselah

 

[Ho_Brah]

"I like it better here where I can sit just quietly and smell the flowers."