Favourite quotes from novels

[Lynn]

Originally Posted by Gadget

Another good bit was when Silk met his (half) brother - that had me laughing outloud.

I decided to re-read the Mallorean (can't find all of my Belgariad books), its been a while since I read them and I am really enjoying them.

[Isis]

"Nothing is ever a lady's fault" - Lord Trimingham

The Go-Between - L.P. Hartley

[Blueshoes]

Originally Posted by philsmove

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clock were striking thirteen.'

Originally Posted by Divissima

1984?

Definitely 1984

[Blueshoes]

Originally Posted by Lou

I always liked...

I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death -- if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach.

Severus Snape; Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone

Added: Damn, just read back and seen that's someone else beat me to it.

[Beowulf]

"The Alchemist's Guild is opposite the Gambler's Guild. Usually. Sometimes it's above it, or below it, or falling in bits around it"

"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad."

[Blueshoes]

"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey?"
"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by Blueshoes

"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey?"
"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."

"Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday"

I'm not as good with books as I am with films but I think I know that one..

I have the urge for some Hunny now !!

[Blueshoes]

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

"Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday"

Spot on.

I love this quote, taken from the introduction to "Winnie-the-Pooh":

If you happen to have read another book about Christopher Robin, you may remember that he once had a swan (or the swan had Christopher Robin, I don't know which)....

And this is meant to be a childrens book?

[NZ Monkey]

OK then, a few quotes all taken from the same tv series.

‘’Mercy is the sign of great man’’
stabs downed unarmed opponent with a rapier
‘’Guess I’m just a good man….’’
stabs downed unarmed opponent with a rapier….again
‘’Well…I’m alright…..’’



‘’Remember Jayne, you only need to scare him’’
‘’Pain is scary…’’ Jayne looks hopeful

…..snip some other dialogue….

‘’See you can’t even lie convincingly. Now I *know* you didn’t get any message out in time’’ sigh ‘’I was going to get me an ear too….’’



‘’A man walks down the road wearing a hat like that, people know he isn’t afraid of anything’’


‘’I never run from a fight’’
‘’YES YOU DO! You run from fights all the time!’’
‘’Well, yeah, but not this one’’


‘’You want to say that to my face?’’
‘’Yeah! What ya goin’ do about it?!’’
‘’Oh nothin’. I just wanted you to face me so she could sneak around behind you…’’
bottle proceeds to be broken over the back of large thugs head


‘’I take it back. *This* must be what going crazy feels like’’

[straycat]

From memory:

Originally Posted by NZ Monkey

OK then, a few quotes all taken from the same tv series.

‘’Mercy is the sign of great man’’
stabs downed unarmed opponent with a rapier
‘’Guess I’m just a good man….’’
stabs downed unarmed opponent with a rapier….again
‘’Well…I’m alright…..’’

"You didn't have to wound that man"
"I know... but it was funny"

Originally Posted by NZ Monkey

‘’I take it back. *This* must be what going crazy feels like’’

He robbed from the rich, and gave to the poor.
Stood up to The Man, and gave him what for
Our love for him now, it ain't hard to explain
The hero of Canton - the man they call Jayne

[NZ Monkey]

The sad thing is you could virtually post the entire script from that show and it'd still fit in a favourite quotes thread....

[Beowulf]

returning the thread to it's bookish origins and away from TV shows

"There had been eight Lazy Guns. A Lazy gun was a little over half a meter in length, about 30 centimetres in width and twenty centimetres in height. It's front was made up of two stubby cylinders which protruded from the smooth, matt-silver main body. The cylinders ended in slightly bulged black-glass lenses. A couple of hand controls sitting on stalks, an eyesight curving up on another extension, and a broad, adjustable metal strap all indicated that the weapon had been designed to be fired from the waist.

There were two controls, one on each hand grip; a zoom wheel and a trigger.

You looked though the sight, zoomed in until the target you had selected just filled your vision, then you pressed the trigger. The Lazy Gun did the rest instantaneously But you had no idea whatsoever exactly what was going to happen next

[...]

Rumour had it that some of the earlier Lazy Guns, at least, had shown what looked suspiciously like humour when they had been used

[...]

A Lazy Gun was light but massy, and weighed exactly three times as much turned upside down as it did the right way up"

hehe... you've just got to admire the imagination of Iain M. Banks.

[wokingdancer]

Originally Posted by Divissima

From one of my favourite novels -

"The wines were too various," he said: "it was neither the quality nor the quantity that was at fault. It was the mixture. Grasp that and you have the root of the matter. To understand all is to forgive all."

Ah, Brideshead Revisited. One of my favourites, in fact it may be my most read book

[straycat]

Originally Posted by Beowulf1970

hehe... you've just got to admire the imagination of Iain M. Banks.

Amongst many other things... in his Culture novels, the Culture's convention for naming spaceships is wonderful, leading to names like:

GSV 'No More Mr Nice Guy'
GCU 'Fate Amenable To Change'
GCU 'Grey Area'
ROU 'Frank Exchange Of Views'
GSV Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival
GCU A Series Of Unlikely Explanations
GCU Big Sexy Beast
GCU Funny, It Worked Last Time...
LSV Serious Callers Only

to name some favourites, but there's many many more where those came from...

[straycat]

An old favourite - such beautiful use of language...

Saki, on the dangers of offending your cook (probably his best-known quote)

"She was a good cook, as cooks go, and as cooks go, she went. "

[straycat]

And another Saki quote, while I'm in the mood:

"Then, in the roadway beyond, she saw a horse struggling with a more than ample load, and a carter of the sort that seems to bear a sullen hatred against the animal that helps him to earn a living. Lady Carlotta promptly betook her to the roadway, and put rather a different complexion on the struggle."

[Barry Shnikov]

What larks, Joe!

[Beowulf]

Originally Posted by Barry Shnikov

What larks, Joe!

Great Expectations?

"Wot larks eh Pip?"

[JonD]

"Even on Central Avenue, not the quietest dressed street in the world, he looked about as inconspicuous as a tarantula on a slice of angel food."

"It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window."

"She gave me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket"

"From thirty feet away she looked like a lot of class. From ten feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from thirty feet away."

"The General spoke again, slowly, using his strength as carefully as an out-of-work show-girl uses her last good pair of stockings."

Just a few - same author, three books.

[Dreadful Scathe]

ah some classics

to briefly go back to FIREFLY I like this exchange

river : "Jayne's a girls name"
Jayne : "but Jayne ain't no girl"

Mr Pratchett has some classics - I particularly like the line about the man who, in the resulting watch report, "committed suicide" by going into the mended drum and proclaiming himself "vincent the invincible"