What is everyone's favorite book line of all time. Mine is "sucks to your [censored]-mar" from Lord of the Flies. I was afraid of censorship, but anyone who has read the book would know that I am not swearing. I don't know why it is my favorite, anyway. Just funny I suppose. Always comes to me when someone talks about their asthma, though I've never said it aloud to another.

I am very keen on the Harry Potter series, and I've always like the quote what I am using for my signature at the moment "To the well-organised mind, Death is but the great big adventure" but over the last few months, it have had more meaning to me.

I'm fond of this one:

Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

That's Douglas Adams. Don't remember which Hitchhiker's book it's from.

Charles Dickens' "It was the best of time; it was the worst of times." (A Tale of Two Cities). I really should make that my family motto.

One of my favourites is from "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" - by Louis de Bernieres.

One of the characters says "I am not a cynic, but I do know that history of the propaganda of the victors".

Ain't it the truth!

In "Second from last in the Sack Race" by David Nobbs. Will ahve to give the couple lines before it to make any sense at all though.

"You know what you are, Pratt? You're a short fat blob of rancid turbot droppings. What are you?"
Henry stood as proud and erect as he could. He looked the sergeant straight in the face. He was unaware of the cold wind, the damp station forcourt, the waiting trucks.
"I'm a man, seargeant," he said.

Here are some of my faves:

"Let's be about it." - any and all of the Honor Harrington books by David Weber
"It was the Summer of the Late Rose and Mossflower country shimmered..." - Redwall, by Brian Jaques

These are all I can think of right now. Mabey more later.

It takes a wise man to recognise that he is dumb and an honest man to recognise that he is a liar
from Something Happened

or even

"Don't Panic"
(Hitchhikers Guide)

He was the last man on Earth. There was a knock on the door.

Ooohhh

JaneMarple your quotation from Harry Potter is, I believe, an imitation of a much more famous quotation from 'Peter Pan' by J M Barrie "To die will be an awfully big adventure" said by Pan as he is about to drown. I rather like a quotation from D.ckens (Boz) in 'A Tale of Two Cities' "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." etc which open the novel. They summarise the attitude to the French Revolution and perfectly preface the novel.

Regards,

Tin

In the book I'm reading right now, "The Tea Rose" by Jennifer Donnelly, there is a particularly heart-breaking line. A character's husband is dying, and on his deathbed he says to her: "You stole my heart. And I've never once wanted it back. Only happiness I've known, I've known because of you." Cheesy? Perhaps. But it didn't stop me from tearing up.

My favorite line has always been the following, from "The Return of The King":

"For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end, the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."

Beautiful.

I am always a big fan of Dumbledore quotes. For instance "Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times...if one only remembers to turn on the light." But I must say that when it comes to quotes, Tolkien produces some of the most beautiful, most courageous, most powerful and most make-you-stop-and-think quotes. One of the best lines ever written in my opinion is said by Gandalf to Frodo: "Many that live deserve death and many that die deserve life. Can you give it to them, Frodo?"

Oh, there's so many to choose from that are so good, but I must agree that Tolkien definately has some of the best. One of my favrites, but also one of the saddest is from Return of the King.
"Where are you going Master?" cried Sam, though at last he understood what was happening.
"To the Havens, Sam," said Frodo.
"And I can't come"
"No Sam, Not yet anyway, not further than the Havens. Though you too were a Ringbearer, if only for a little while. Your time may come. Do not be too sad, Sam. You cannot be always torn in two. You will have to be one and whole, for many years. You have so much to enjoy and to be, and to do. "
"But," said Sam, and tears started in his eyes, "I thought you were going to enjoy the Shire, too, for years and years, after all you have done."
"So I thought too, once. But I have been too deeply hurt, Sam. I tried to save the Shire, and it has been saved, but not for me. It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, to lose them, so that others may keep them."
My favorite parts are in bold.

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed..." from the Gunlinger series by Stephen King. The opening line had me intrigued from the start wanting to know who this gunslinger is, who the man in black is, why is he following him etc.

"We all float down here." -- IT, by Stephen King

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times...if one only remembers to turn on the light."

I'm wondering if this isn't Rowling's version of a similar quote by J. A. Michener, "An age is called dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people fail to see it". That's always been a favourite of mine.

I'm glad I came across this thread; I actually keep a notebook nearby when I read, so that I may copy down (and reference) passages that I find inspiring, humourous, compelling... or even just well-written. It's a pleasure to share some with you.


"Never heard of [Aristotle]. If he lived being moderate, he didn't live at all. Maybe he didn't like any part of it. Who wants to live feeling his pulse all the time and calculating his life in the years he has lived and not how he lived?" ~Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell

"There is no room among honourable men for prejudice against other men for the fault -- if you want to call it that -- of their birth" ~Captains and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell

"This above all, to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~Hamlet Iiii, 78-80

"...the implied notion that science and art are diametrically opposing poles of human endeavour is mistaken. Many people think that science is logical, rigid and cold, while art is intuitive, flexible and touchy-feely. In fact, both processes are simply two faces of the same coin. Intuition feeds logic and vice versa. Science without imagination is useless; art without structure is pointless." ~Diana Gabaldon in The Outlandish Companion

"My first thought was that Alfric had enjoyed scarcely enough bullying for the evening, and had excused himself politely from the table in order to sprint upstairs and whale the living daylights out of me for the sheer joy of daylights-whaling." ~Weasel's Luck by Michael Williams.

Hope you enjoyed!

Quote:

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"This above all, to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
~Hamlet Iiii, 78-80

---

You are right,LadyCaitriona, I have thought and thought , and that's the one.

"Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault."
"Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope."

My two favourites, from the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray.

This one is from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

"Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies."

Voldermort speaks this line when he comes to ask Dumbledore for a post of a teacher at Hogwarts and Dumbledore asks whether all that he has heard is true.

From Terry Pratchett & Bernard Pearson's Diskworld Almanak - it shows how you can be accurate & misleading -
Facts to bear in mind when selecting fungii -
1) All fungii are edible
2) Some fungii are not edible more than once.

Some very intriguing choices here.

Just a thought - if and when an author puts the words in a character's mouth is he always suggesting that we take them at face value and use them as profound and accurate truths? For example, if a character in Shakespeare or Dickens is untrustworthy, jealous, lewd, villainous etc - are his (the character's) words not meant to be doubted / weighed carefully rather than extolled? Or do the word assume their own value in any case?

'Ralph wept for the end of innocence and the darkness of men's hearts' (William Golding -'Lord of the Flies' - an infinitely more frightening book than any horror story! The line quoted may not be entirely accurate as I have not cheked the text!

“’once you learn how to die, you learn how to live.’” - tuesdays with morrie by mitch albom

If you haven't read it you should. It's my favorite book.

"Marley was dead, to begin with."
Sorry, I'm addicted to A Christmas Carol. I think it's one of the best stories ever written. It means so much more than just Christmas.
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I don't have a copy of "The Grapes of Wrath" right now, but I love Tom Joad's speech about "wherever there's a little guy, I'll be there." (sorry that's not an exact quote.)