Favorite Passage/Paragraph, etc...

[slipperyyoke]

I was just wondering if anyone has a favorite passage or paragraph from a book that stands out in your memory. Whether it makes you cry, smile, or perhaps reveals some previously unknown emotion locked within your subconsciousness. Something that never fails to put a smile on my face is a passage from Moby-Dick.

"There is a wisdom that is woe, but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains, so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar."

[amuse]

from James Baldwin's Another Country comes one of the most painful paragraphs i have ever read. i used it to cry before a monologue in the 9th grade. the book was my dad's and is in california but i'll get hold of a copy and post it.

[mono]

Interesting thread. :)
I have many, many favorite passages, and, just my luck, right now, I do not reside in my apartment with my mini-library. Most come from poetry, as I think of them, but one that I have memorized comes from William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo first sees Juliet at the Capulet party (I just hope I get the punctuation correct, too):

O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!
Her beauty hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,
As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows.
The measure done, I'll watch her place of stand,
And, touching hers, make blessed my rude hand.
Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight!
For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night.

[Koa]

I have lots of favourite moments.... I used to write them all down on a notebook...

[Nerd]

I don't know if you've read F., but in the novel, Victor Frank. creates a monster refered to as "the Monster" or "The Monstrocity." The book changes perspectives a lot (from a sailor, R. Walton to the scientist, Victor, to the Monster), but this next passage is from the Monster's perpsective. As it turns out, he's not a fumbling incoherent thing.

"But Paradise Lost [a poem] excited different and far deeper emotions. I read it, and as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as a true histroy. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the picuture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and aquire knowledge from beings of a superior nature, but I was weteched, helpless, and alone. Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter fall of evny rose within me, " (118).

I think we can acredit Mary Shelly more than the character for that spout of greatness. :)

[papayahed]

One that really sticks out is from The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett. It goes something like: We got up at 1:00 and had martini's for Breakfast. OK, it's not that profound, but it strikes me.

[Fango]

Another Shakespearean quote, this is from "Much Ado About Nothing":

Beatrice: ...I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man
swear he loves me.
Benedick: God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some
gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate
scratched face.
Beatrice: Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such
a face as yours were.

[Snukes]

*digging up commonplace book* I love this game!!

And no judging me for my current taste in "literature..." ;)

"Entertaining a notion, like entertaining a baby cousin or a pack of hyenas, is a dangerous thing to refuse to do. If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well. If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you. But if you refuse to entertain a notion... you have to be much more brave than someone who is merely facing some bloodthirsty animals or some parents upset to find their little darling at the bottom of a well, because nobody knows what an idea will do when it goes off to entertain itself." (Lemony Snicket)

Okay okay... one favorite at a time. I'll be back...

[Pip]

I have many favorite passages, but this one from A Game of Thrones , part of which is in my signature is, ranks highly:

"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"Our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out.“The Kingsguard does not flee.”
“Then or now,” said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
“We swore a vow,” explained old Ser Gerold.
Ned’s wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
“And now it begins,” said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
“No,” Ned said with sadness in his voice. “Now it ends.”

Maybe it's only me, but I love that passage. There's a lot more to it, but I didn't feel like typing the rest.

[ktrboston]

There is poem I have read in English Lit class last semister that is considered one of my favorites. Here it is. its from Mutability by Shelly

"We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon, How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver, Streaking the darkness radiantly!