Quotes from Books

[SueK]

Well, having just started to re-read Rebecca, what can I say .......

 

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

 

Aaah

[Heather]

Reading Faithless by Karin Slaghter

[chesilbeach]

I'm currently reading The First Person by Ali Smith and this line really struck me:

 

That kiss up against the building site fills the inside of my head again as if someone had opened a lid at the top of my skull, poured in a jug of warm water mixed with flower food, then arranged a bunch of spring flowers in me - cheerfulness, daffodils - using me as the vase.

[BookJumper]

Chesil... awwww!

[BookJumper]

From Tom Raabe's Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction:

 

"Obscure academician enounters a text in a dark alley and the text deconstructs him with steel-studded Cliff Notes. A call from ivory tower insiders to deconstruct all known texts becomes watchword of serious literature."

 

Tee hee. Is it sad that this amuses me so?

[Peacefield]

Here are a few from a most-loved book of mine entitled The Art Spirit by Robert Henri:

 

Your painting is the marking of your progression into nature, a sensation of something you see way beyond the two pretty colors over there. Don't stop to paint the material, but push on to give the spirit.

 

All real works of art look as though they were done in joy.

 

The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.

[poppyshake]

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens

[gracea88]

I have always loved this quote from Jane Austen's Persuasion:

 

- "You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope."-

[BookJumper]

"You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope."

*sigh* I love that letter *sigh*!

[Raoul Duke]

I had an inkling that you might be a Thompson fan. I am one also. But so far I've only read The Rum Diary and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I have others on my TBR pile though.

 

 

You guessed right!

 

I really enjoyed his book The Great Shark Hunt, which is really just collections from his magazine articles, but it is really great stuff. Also, Hells's Angels and his Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail are both very interesting reads.

[Kylie]

Good to hear, because I have all three of those on my TBR pile!

[Book Fiend]

I came across this one today and love it!

 

'This goes along with another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise' - Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

 

This is exactly how I feel most of the time!

[Morbid Hermit]

I came across this one today and love it!

 

'This goes along with another belief of mine: that everyone else my age is an adult, whereas I am merely in disguise' - Cat's Eye by Margaret Atwood

 

This is exactly how I feel most of the time!

 

That's a great quote! I can identify with that in a way. (Although sometimes it feels quite the opposite, when witnessing the abhorrent behaviour of many other 'adults'..!)

[Ben]

Some of these quotes are excellent.

[FaustoMerckx]

Here's a long but great one from Thomas Wolfe's 'Of Time and the River' -

 

'They belonged to that futile, desolate, and forsaken horde who felt that all will be well with their lives, that all the power they lack themselves will be supplied, and all the anguish, fury, and unrest, the confusion and the dark damnation of man's soul can magically be healed if only they eat bran for breakfast'

 

And another one, from 'An Inland Voyage' by R.L Stephenson

 

'If a position is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary and superfluously useless, although it were as respectable as the Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, the better for himself and all concerned'

[slemonade]

Ok...so here's one I liked

"You got it backwards, Dill," said Jem. "Clowns are sad, it's folks that laugh at them."

"Well, I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the middle of the ring and laugh at the folks."

~Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

[AbielleRose]

One quote that has always stood out to me is:

 

"A single wildflower given with love is worth more than a dozen roses given with indifference." from Wildflowers by Robin Jones Gunn.

 

The book itself is just okay, but that is a beautiful and truthful sentence.

[Dimitra]

The Catcher In The Rye had some great quotes, but the one that really touched me was this one:

 

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around — nobody big, I mean — except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff — I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.

[Rawr]

The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson.

 

One of the finest openings ever written;

 

No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood so for eighty years and might stand for eighty more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone.

 

 

[Nollaig]

I just read this in Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, a book described on the back cover as "a masterpiece of modern Gothic literature":

 

They peered in at the merry-go-round which lay under a dry rattle and roar of wind-tumbled oak trees. Its horses, goats, antelopes, zebras, speared through their spines with brass javelins, hung contorted as in a death rictus, asking mercy with their fright-colored eyes, seeking revenge with their panic-colored teeth.

 

Isn't that just fantastic? This is SUCH an darkly atmospheric book!

[Ben]

Love that Noll!

[Johnny Carson Whit]

I just read this in Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, a book described on the back cover as "a masterpiece of modern Gothic literature":

 

They peered in at the merry-go-round which lay under a dry rattle and roar of wind-tumbled oak trees. Its horses, goats, antelopes, zebras, speared through their spines with brass javelins, hung contorted as in a death rictus, asking mercy with their fright-colored eyes, seeking revenge with their panic-colored teeth.

 

Isn't that just fantastic? This is SUCH an darkly atmospheric book!

 

I love that, another book to add to my list...

[Nollaig]

It's a great book J.C.W., one of Bradbury's novels as opposed to short story collections, and it features the Illustrated Man from one of said short story collections. It's a really great read so far.

[Johnny Carson Whit]

It's a great book J.C.W., one of Bradbury's novels as opposed to short story collections, and it features the Illustrated Man from one of said short story collections. It's a really great read so far.

 

I must confess I have never even heard of Ray Bradbury, much less this book, doing a little research I am amazed at how many books he has done that would interest me, and how revered this particular book seems to be.

 

Mr Bradbury has just bumped his way up to the top of my most wanted list. Many thanks for bringing him to my attention!

 

Sorry, dont want to hijack the thread, i'll be quiet now...

[Nollaig]

Haha it's no bother, book-discovery tangents are always welcome! It'll get back on topic easily. Here I'll stick in another quote from this book to do so. This is a description of the main two characters, the more adventurous of the two (Jim) leading the other (Will) who follows by default of friendship.

Sometimes you see a kite so high, so wise it almost knows the wind. It travels, then chooses to land in one spot and no other and no matter how you yank, run this way or that, it will simply break it's cord, seek its resting place and bring you, blood-mouthed, running. So now Jim was the kite, the wild twine cut, and whatever wisdom was his taking him away from Will who could only run, earthbound, after one so high and dark silent and suddenly strange.

 

I love this guy's way of writing.