Favourite Quotes From Favourite Books

Being that there is the fav quote thread for films, I thought it appropriate that there should be a thread to share fav quotes from books.

Which lines keep speaking to you over and over, and are most profound?  Which words bring comfort?  Which ones a laugh?

Share, share, share!

Afterwards I learned, that the best way to manage some kinds of painful thoughts, is to dare them to do their worst; to let them lie and gnaw at your heart till they are tired; and you find you still have a residue of life they cannot kill.

Phantastes, George MacDonald.

I bow not yet before the Iron Crown, nor cast my own small golden sceptre down.

 Mythopoeia, J.R.R. Tolkien.

As I remember them, and as I run across them again, I will share mine.

I experience the truth of this statement everytime I have the oportunity to perform for an audience:

'Madam, in music he who gives receives as much as he who hears.'

Spoken by the character of Kevin The Harper; The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley.

"North Richmond Street, being blind, was a quiet street except at the hour when the Christian Brothers' School set the boys free." - Araby by James Joyce. Very clever. LOVE James Joyce. And while I'm at it: "Yes, I said, Yes, I will, Yes." VERY sexy line from Ulysses....


"HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME   
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME   
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.   
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night." - Wasteland.

"I cannot live without my life I cannot die without my soul" - Wuthering Heights

"I cannot live without my life I cannot die without my soul" - Wuthering Heights

OMG I agree!!!  Ever see Wuthering Heights the movie with Ralph Fiennes & Juliet Banoche?  That line will make you WEEP UNCONTROLLABLY!!

"...my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath - a source of little visible delight, but necessary."

"You said I killed you - haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always - take any form - drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!"

OMG I agree!!!  Ever see Wuthering Heights the movie with Ralph Fiennes & Juliet Banoche?  That line will make you WEEP UNCONTROLLABLY!!

Yup - everything about that book/film gets me in the throat and that line does indeed send me into sobs!!!! Though I do prefer the original Olivier/Oberon version - I have that on VHS at my mom's and DVD here - I'm a woman obsessed!

OMG I agree!!! 

Me too.
 

I'm a woman obsessed!

I think I can compete with you on that one! LOL

You HAVE to see the one with Ralph Fiennes!  He makes a PERFECT Heathcliffe (surprisingly enough).

Oh - gonna watch it tonight now....better stop at the shop for some tissues...already have Hagen Daas in the freezer! 

Wow, Anne - are you one of those rare people who have actually finished Ulysses? ? ?

I think I got about a quarter through it and my nose wouldn't stop bleeding. Thought it might have triggered some sort of spontaneous brain haemorrhage

Wow, Anne - are you one of those rare people who have actually finished Ulysses? ? ?

I did. BUT I had to have a few gos. First I tried just reading it and "getting it" on my own. Then I bought "Joyce Annotated" and tried to read it while reading that. But then I was given a tip that you just have to read it for the beauty of the language. Don't get bogged down in meanings, etc. - just read it for it's own sake. Honestly, that's the key. It's gorgeous if you can get past the obtuseness (is that a word? LOL.)

When Dylan Thomas talks about "cats in their fur-abouts" sitting in front of the fire in A Child's Christmas in Wales.

I love DT's language. He also says,

"There were the Useful presents: engulfing mufflers of the old coach days, and mittens made for giant sloths; zebra scarfs of a substance like silky gum that could be tug-o'-warred down to the galoshes; blinding tam-o'-shangers like patchwork tea cozies and bunny-suited busbies and balaclavas for victims of head-shrinking tribes; from aunt who always wore wool next to the skin there were mustached and rasping vests that made you wonder why the aunts had any skin left at all; and once I had a little crocheted nose bag for an aunt now, alas, no long whinnying with us."

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther..... And one fine morning- "
 

'...for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs'
Middlemarch, George Eliot

Elizabeth Bishop frequently comes to mind...  From "Crusoe in England":

Pity should begin at home.
So the more pity I felt,
the more I felt at home

and

Home-made, home-made!
But aren't we all?

Also, from "The Moose":

"Yes . . ." that peculiar
affirmative.  "Yes . . ."
A sharp, indrawn breath,
half groan, half acceptance,
that means "Life's like that.
We know it (also death)."

This is a bit long but I like it a lot....

An excerpt from Sylvia Browne's "The Other Side and Back":

I once asked a very wise soul, when I was much younger and going through an especially rough time, why life had to be so hard. She answered with a question: "What have you learned from those times when life was easy?" As much as I hate to admit it, she was right. The old adage "If it doesn't kill you, it'll make you stronger" is true. We don't learn from never having hurdles in our path to begin with; we learn from overcoming the hurdles we are confronted with along the way. That is why our spirits come here--to experience and overcome negativity in all its forms and learn from it, and then take that knowledge back Home.

Oooohhh, thanks for contributing, Everyone.  Keep those fav quotes comin'.