Literature Favorite Quotes

[vada]

I don't know if this has been done before, but I thought it could be interesting to share some of our favorite quotes. The prefix says Literature, but I also want to include Movies/Shows, and maybe even song lyrics. Anything that really stands out to you, is thought-provoking, touching, funny, whatever.

I'll start with a few quotes from of the books I'm reading at the moment, Ink & Sigil by Kevin Hearne:

“After all, there is nothing so deadly, so ultimately terminal, as being alive.”

“I subscribe to a theory that answers cannot hide from us forever if we seek them long enough.”

“How much magic and wonder was missed while people were distracted by something flickering on their screens?”

 

[WhiskeyMarten]

My favourite saying isn't attributed to anyone, and Google says it's a common Irish saying:
"What's for you won't pass you" (or a variation on that sentence)

My grandad says it to my mum, and my mum in turn says it to me often. I think about it a lot when I'm stressing over life, especially during a time when I'm trying to figure out my future with so many choices.

 

[vada]

My favourite saying isn't attributed to anyone, and Google says it's a common Irish saying:
"What's for you won't pass you" (or a variation on that sentence)

My grandad says it to my mum, and my mum in turn says it to me often. I think about it a lot when I'm stressing over life, especially during a time when I'm trying to figure out my future with so many choices.

I really like that! I hadn’t heard it before, but I think they’re definitely wise words (and comforting too!) to live by.

Thanks for sharing!

 

[Edric Blight]

I don’t know if this really counts but it’s from a video game based off of a show.

The quote is “I had a great time today kids. I almost never appear this much in the series!….. Of events that constitute your lives!”

That’s just a funny one given the context.

My other quote isn’t from anything but it’s an uncommon saying I use a lot: “Not my monkey, not my circus.” It essentially means not my problem.

 

[vada]

I don’t know if this really counts but it’s from a video game based off of a show.

The quote is “I had a great time today kids. I almost never appear this much in the series!….. Of events that constitute your lives!”

That’s just a funny one given the context.

My other quote isn’t from anything but it’s an uncommon saying I use a lot: “Not my monkey, not my circus.” It essentially means not my problem.

It definitely counts!!

I like that. “Lemme just go mind my own business over here…”

 

[Edric Blight]

It definitely counts!!

I like that. “Lemme just go mind my own business over here…”

Exactly haha! I love it. And when I use it people are always confused.

 

[vada]

Exactly haha! I love it. And when I use it people are always confused.

“… Huh? What monkey? ”

 

[Edric Blight]

“… Huh? What monkey? ”

Exactly lmao

 

[vada]

“I supposed it was the difference between wishing to be better and wishing to be best. They are not remotely the same thing.”
― Kevin Hearne, Paper & Blood

“The best we can do sometimes, in absence of actual wisdom, is to simply cease being foolish.”
― Kevin Hearne, Paper & Blood

"Grief is never easy. But it gets softer around the edges, smoothed over like a river rock given time enough and water. It’s still a rock and it’s heavy and dangerous and capable of hurting you.”
― Kevin Hearne, Paper & Blood

 

[Mitheral]

(Vincent Spano) "Harry, how did you know you were in love? I mean with you and Lucy. How'd you know it wasn't just infatuation?"
(Peter O'Toole) "Scientifically, of COURSE. By using The Love Formula."
(Vincent Spano) "The what?"
(Peter O'Toole) "Love Formula. Add up the number of times that you think about the lady each day. Subtract from the total the number of times you think about yourself each day. If the remainder is more lady, and less yourself, then it's love."
(Vincent Spano) "Oh, I've been thinking about Barbara a lot lately."
(Peter O'Toole) "What's so very neat about this particular formula, is that "a lot" plugs into it beautifully. Boris, would you and the subject of your computations care to join me at the beach house for the weekend?"

-From: The Creator
**************

“Don’t ever get angry at a man for stating the truth.”
-Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
*****************

“I tried to get through to my brother, Mike, on the Moon, but the phone company wouldn’t let me place the call until I had signed a contract and posted a $25,000 bond.”
- Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (Haldeman was a fan of Heinlein. I suspect this was a nod to the book Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Mike was the name of the main character.)
**************

There are more ... but then I have had a lot longer to hear favorite quotes than most.

 

[vada]

(Vincent Spano) "Harry, how did you know you were in love? I mean with you and Lucy. How'd you know it wasn't just infatuation?"
(Peter O'Toole) "Scientifically, of COURSE. By using The Love Formula."
(Vincent Spano) "The what?"
(Peter O'Toole) "Love Formula. Add up the number of times that you think about the lady each day. Subtract from the total the number of times you think about yourself each day. If the remainder is more lady, and less yourself, then it's love."
(Vincent Spano) "Oh, I've been thinking about Barbara a lot lately."
(Peter O'Toole) "What's so very neat about this particular formula, is that "a lot" plugs into it beautifully. Boris, would you and the subject of your computations care to join me at the beach house for the weekend?"

-From: The Creator
**************

“Don’t ever get angry at a man for stating the truth.”
-Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
*****************

“I tried to get through to my brother, Mike, on the Moon, but the phone company wouldn’t let me place the call until I had signed a contract and posted a $25,000 bond.”
- Joe Haldeman, The Forever War (Haldeman was a fan of Heinlein. I suspect this was a nod to the book Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Mike was the name of the main character.)
**************

There are more ... but then I have had a lot longer to hear favorite quotes than most.

I’d love to read them, if you ever feel like sharing. Goodness knows I’ll probably add a bunch more of my own to this thread.

(though that does leave me to wonder, if I post a hundred of my favorite quotes, can they really be called my *favorite*? lol)

 

[Mitheral]

I’d love to read them, if you ever feel like sharing. Goodness knows I’ll probably add a bunch more of my own to this thread.

(though that does leave me to wonder, if I post a hundred of my favorite quotes, can they really be called my *favorite*? lol)

Well, I can't post most of my favorites. They would be against RPN rules.

 

[Mitheral]

But this one is okay:
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (She foresaw social media.)

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (again)
********

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
-Mother Teresa
***********

...why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away?
-Mel Gibson in The Patriot

 

[vada]

But this one is okay:
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (She foresaw social media.)

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-Eleanor Roosevelt (again)
********

If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
-Mother Teresa
***********

...why should I trade one tyrant three thousand miles away for three thousand tyrants one mile away?
-Mel Gibson in The Patriot

I love these! Eleanor Roosevelt and Mother Teresa are two of my favorite women from history.

And The Patriot is
Amazing movie!

 

[vada]

“We start out in identical perfection: bright, reflective, full of sun. The accident of our lives bruises us into dirty individuality. We meet with grief. Our character dulls and tarnishes. We meet with guilt. We know, we know: the price of living is corruption. There isn’t as much light as there once was. In the grave we lapse back into undifferentiated sameness.”
― Gregory Maguire, A Lion Among Men (The Wicked Years, #3)

 

[Mitheral]

Spoiler: People Are People - Depeche Mode

People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully
People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

So we're different colours and we're different creeds
And different people have different needs
It's obvious you hate me though I've done nothing wrong
I've never even met you, so what could I have done

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully
People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

And now you're punching and you're kicking and you're shouting at me
I'm relying on your common decency
So far, it hasn't surfaced but I'm sure it exists
It just take a while to travel from your head to your fist

I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand

People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully
People are people, so why should it be
You and I should get along so awfully

*I can't understand
What makes a man
Hate another man
Help me understand*

*Repeats 5 more times

 

[vada]

“There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan.”
― Leonard Snart

 

[vada]

“Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

 

[vada]

Diane Court: Nobody thinks it will work, do they?
Lloyd Dobler: No. You just described every great success story.
― Say Anything (1989)

 

[A Sparkling Zombie]

"Smelling your mother's farts is a lot like incest." - Probation by Tom Mendicino

 

[SandraDeelightful]

This is less of a quote and more of a whole passage from a poem, but I love it!

“Some love is fire: some love is rust:
But the fiercest, cleanest love is lust.
And their lust was tremendous. It had the feel
Of hammers clanging; and stone; and steel:
And torches of the savage, roaring kind
That rip through iron, and strike men blind:
Of long trains crashing through caverns under
Grey trembling streets, like angry thunder:
Of engines throbbing; and hoarse steam spouting;
And feet tramping; and great crowds shouting.
A lust so savage, they could have wrenched
The flesh from bone, and not have blenched.”
~The Wild Party, by Joseph Moncure March
​

Honestly, this whole poem is amazing and I’m half tempted to just put the whole thing here.

 

[vada]

SandraDeelightful You should!

 

[Battlemaid]

"When is a legend legend? Why is a myth a myth?
How old and disused must a fact be for it to be relegated to the category "Fairy-tale"? And why do certain facts remain in-controvertible while others lose their validity to assume a shabby, unstable character?"
~ Anne McCaffrey, Dragonflight

 

[vada]

“As soon as we become accustomed to the silent presence of a thing, it gets broken or disappears. My ties to the people around me were also marked by those two modes of impermanence: breaking up or disappearing.”
― Valeria Luiselli, Faces in the Crowd

 

[vada]

"Smelling your mother's farts is a lot like incest." - Probation by Tom Mendicino

lol I have to admit, this one caught me by surprise. What's the book about?