Favorite Book Quotes

[sir clinksalot]

Thought it might be cool to see some of our favorite book quotes:

I'm currently reading The Masked Rider by Neil Peart and came across this gem as he was talking about crossing an armed checkpoint in West Africa on his bicycle tour.

And at that moment, out of nowhere, the origin of the word gendarmes came to me. Gens d'armes translates freely as "guys with guns". I like those sudden flashes of understanding, like the time in France when I was pedaling by a county line and noticed that the word for county, comte', was like the word for count, comte. Then I saw the connection. A Comte rules over a compte', just as a count rules over a county.

An interesting thing to know, simple, neat, and, like so many facts, useless. Like guys with Guns.

It's the last bit I like best, but it's good to know the context.

[ALIASd]

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Nick Caraway in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby


Excellent thread Gregg, thanks!

[Jesser-pie]

"Don't underestimate the value of doing nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."
- Winnie the Pooh

I love this quote and I have always enjoyed pondering the authors intent!

[The Disneylander]

I have several:

"Yossarian was in love with the chaplain." -- Catch-22

"Call me Ishmael." -- Moby Dick

"The public good be damned!" -- Atlas Shrugged

"A philistine on the sidewalk." -- Calvin and Hobbes

[ni_teach]

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favorite authors, here a just a handful of quotes from some of her books.


A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind.
--Lois McMaster Bujold The Vor Game


The will to be stupid is a very powerful force, but there are always alternatives.
--Lois McMaster Bujold Brothers in Arms


I don't confuse greatness with perfection. To be great anyhow is…the higher achievement.
--Lois McMaster Bujold Mirror Dance


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


If power was an illusion, wasn't weakness necessarily one also?
--Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign

[yoyoflamingo]

A little overused, but a great quote from The Perks of Being a Wallflower:

"We accept the love we think we deserve."

[Stitchy]

"A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head:
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished:
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo."

My favorite Shakespeare play. My daughter's named after it.

[lazyboy97O]

"Those who meant well behaved in the same way as those who meant badly"
~Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

[Roo719]

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio
Then are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Shakespeare's Hamlet.

I usually fall upon this quote whilst ghost-hunting. It reminds me, no matter what our religions or beliefs tell us, that there is just no way of knowing everything.

Peace,
Roo

[ashfordT]

Although I've never actually read the book, I love the line from A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times..."

[mycroft16]

Originally Posted by ashfordT

Although I've never actually read the book, I love the line from A Tale of Two Cities, "It was the best of times, and it was the worst of times..."

That's the opening line I LOVE that book and read it at least once a year. A very powerful book indeed.

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning him-self to let it eat him away."
~~ A Tale of Two Cities

"There is always more misery among the lower class than there is humanityin the higher."
~~ Les Miserables

"The quantity of civilization is measured by the quality of imagination."
~~ Les Miserables

"Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most."
~~ Crime and Punishment