Quotes from Books

[Mark F.]

"But it's the truth even if it didn't happen."

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

[Janine]

Wonderful idea this thread!

"It seemed almost as if, at home, I might lift my hand to the ceiling of the valley, and touch my own beloved sky, whose familiar clouds came again and again to visit me, whose stars were constant to me, born when I was born, whose sun had been all my father to me. But now the skies were strange over my head, and Orion walked past me unnoticing, he who night after night had stood over the woods to spend with me a wonderful hour."

D.H.Lawrence “The White Peacock” (his first published novel)
Poem may refer to the author’s own feeling, working in London


"... his black hair was moist and twisted into confused half-curls. Firmly planted, he swung with a beautiful rhythm from the waist ...; his shirt, faded almost white, was torn just above the belt, and showed the muscles of his back playing like lights upon the white sand of a brook."

D.H.Lawrence “The White Peacock”

[Virgil]

Nice quotes, Janine. I'm pooped. See you around tomorrow

[jarradalexander]

'yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, i have had my vision.'

[Virgil]

'yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, i have had my vision.'

I see jarra that you are reading Virgina Woolf's To The Lighthouse. That is a great line from a great novel.

[brainstrain]

I just finished A Tale of Two Cities. one of my all time favorite books (besides Inkheart, the third harry potter, and Peter and the Starcatchers). I am sure most of you have heard this, but it is worth repeating:

"It is a far, far better thing that i do, than i have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that i go to than i have ever known"

-Sydney Carton

also, one i like simply because of the elemental reference:

"Tell the wind and fire where to stop; not me!"

-Madame Defarge

I love this book. my older sister loved this book. my oldest sister is in africa so i don't know about her, but still. The last three paragraphs brought tears to my eyes

[brainstrain]

Also, from a book I read for English II earlier this year (A Separate Peace, also a book that I loved):

"All of them...at infinite cost to themselves constructed these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy"

"It wasn't until much later that i recognized sarcasm as the protest of those who are weak"

"It seemed clear that wars were not made by generations and their special stupidities, but that wars were instead made by something ignorant in the human heart
~Gene
A Seperate Peace

[Tasartir]

Yep, I'm a newbie! Hi everyone! Well, I'm rereading Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer for the third time now! I enjoy this book so much, it's so personal, Miller is amazing; it feels like you've stepped into the mind of this author while you're reading. Here's the quote:

"Suddenly it all died down. It was as if he remembered, in the midst of his antics, that he had on a cutaway suit. He arrested himself. A great mistake, in my humble opinion. Art consists in going the full length. If you start with the drums you have to end with dynamite, or TNT. Ravel sacrificed something for form, for a vegetable that people must digest before going to bed."

[DragonScale101]

From the book I'm reading right now, The Little Country, by Charles de Lint- I searched back a while to find this particular quote.

Could it be true? If the Widow DID have a Small, hidden away in that old house of hers..
Wouldn't that be something?
And if it WAS true, did she herself have the nerve to sneak in and have a look at him?
Not likely.
She didn't have the nerve.
Nor would there really be a Small.
But what if there was?

[Horatio]

"THE CAB I HAD was a real old one that smelled like someone'd just tossed his cookies in it."

[LPRox015]

My favorite quote from Come Into The Garden Maud by Lord Alfred Tennyson is:

"Half the night I waste in sighs,
Half in dreams I sorrow after
The delight of early skies;
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
For the meeting of the morrow
The delight of happy laughter,
The delight of low replies."

[slipperyyoke]

This is just one of many that I love from Walden..

"The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly."

[grace86]

From Crime and Punishment - I just loved this part:

"Do you like street music?" said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering.

"I love to hear singing to a street organ," said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject--"I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings--they must be damp--when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there's no wind--you know what I mean?--and the street lamps shine right through it...."

"I don't know...Excuse me..." muttered the stranger, frightened by the question and Raskolnikov's strange manner, and he crossed over to the other side of the street.

That part just to me sums up Raskolnikov at this point of the novel, and it is morbidly funny as well.

[ghideon]

I am half way through Paradise Lost by Milton. He is an extraordinary writer and comes closer to Shakespare then most, which is saying a lot and not saying much since nobody comes too close to The Bard of Bards.

Satan is about to enter Eden and reek his vengance. But, as he looks down on his destination he ponders on his destiny and expresses profound distress for the first time in the poem.


"...Now conscience wakes despair
That slumbered , wakes the bitter memory
Of what he was, what is, and what must be"

"O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere,
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down."

[jon1jt]

From Crime and Punishment - I just loved this part:

"Do you like street music?" said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering.

"I love to hear singing to a street organ," said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject--"I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings--they must be damp--when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there's no wind--you know what I mean?--and the street lamps shine right through it...."

"I don't know...Excuse me..." muttered the stranger, frightened by the question and Raskolnikov's strange manner, and he crossed over to the other side of the street.

That part just to me sums up Raskolnikov at this point of the novel, and it is morbidly funny as well.

that's a great quote grace, wow, it doesn't get any better than that---it reminds me how much dostoyevsky was as much a poet as he was a prose writer. thanks!