What is your favorite literary quote?

One of my favorites is from Las Amigas by Carlos Fuentes:
“No, aquellos eran los tiempos jóvenes. Éstos son los viejos tiempos, Archibald.”

It means, “Those weren’t old times. These are the old times, Archibald.” (Which is sort of true if you think about it, or you might just twist yourself up in knots, which is what I did when I tried to write something to explain how it is true. That’s kind of why I like the quote though. It sort of illustrates one of my other favorite literary quotes:

“No hay prisión menos explicable que la de las palabras” which is from _Quizá nos lleve el viento al infinito” by Torrente Ballester. “There’s no prison less explainable than that of words”. Wow, that translates really badly. Take from it what you will.

Another

“If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully.”

The Red Tent, Anita Diamant.

“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Which road do I take? she asked. Where do you want to go? was his response. I don’t know, Alice answered. Then, said the cat, it doesn’t matter.” – Lewis Carroll

“Deserves it (death)! I daresay he does. Many that live deseve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement For even the wise cannot see all end.” – J R R Tolkien

There are so many literary quotes that I love (or lurve) but these are the two that came to mind.

“Vi Veri Veniversum Vivus Vici. ”
-“By the power of truth I, while living, have conquered the universe”. -from Faust
...and…

“This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang, but with a whimper.”- from T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men

“I teleported home one day with Ron and Sid and Meg,
Ron stole Meggie’s heart away and I got Sydney’s leg.”

” ‘What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?’
‘Ask a glass of water.’”

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” George Orwell, 1984

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
F. Scott Friggin’ Fitzgerald

“Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates.”—JK Rowling

“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.”—Plutarch

“As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”—Seneca

“To live in perpetual want of little things is a state, not indeed of torture, but of constant vexation.”—Samuel Johnson

What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.—Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The horror, the horror.—Mistah Kurtz.
meh, I’ll come back with something good later. Gotta be some Milton I can throw out there.

@Baloo72 Did you know that your quote was already in the bible before J.R.R. latched onto it?

my quote? “At this hour, the stores were closed.” – from page 237 of Odd Hours by Dean Koontz.

“I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.”

-Anthem by Ayn Rand

@Alfreda—are you seriously quoting JK rowling??? I am so sick of Harry Potter coming up as “literature” in these fluther book questions. All you tolkien and rowling fans should try reading a book that isn’t available on netflix.

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

Dr Seuss

@emt333 I, for one, have no problem with acknowledging JK Rowling as a legitimate author as long as Stephanie Meyer stays the hell out of this discussion thread.

Oops, that may not be cleared by the literature committee sooo

Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.
Oscar Wilde

@peyton_farquhar ban em both and burn their books!!!!

@emt333, the quote is from her speech at Harvard’s commencement exercises. Which was quite nicely done.

so how does that qualify as literary?

How do you define literary, emt333?

Oh wait…The worst sex I ever had was with my 10 year old cousin. no explanation necessary.

um…i’ll go with the dictionary defintion.

“Poverty is a relatively mild disease for even a very flimsy American soul, but uselessness will kill strong and weak souls alike, and kill every time.”

- God Bless You, Mr Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

More like an excerpt, really:

’“Have you got any soul?’ a woman asks the next afternoon. That depends, I feel like saying; some days yes, some days no. A few days ago I was right out; now I’ve got loads, too much, more than I can handle. I wish I could spread it a bit more evenly, I want to tell her, get a better balance, but I can’t seem to get it sorted. I can see she wouldn’t be interested in my internal stock control problems though, so I simply point to where I keep the soul I have, right by the exit, just next to the blues.”—High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

“Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. ‘Pooh?’ he whispered.
‘Yes, Piglet?’
‘Nothing,’ said Piglet, taking Pooh’s hand. ‘I just wanted to be sure of you.’”
— A.A. Milne (Winnie-the-Pooh)

@NaturalMineralWater Yup, knew that though it’s worded a bit differently ;)

@emt333 I don’t know why something in the fantasy genre can’t be considered literature. I certainly don’t know why a novel that has been made into a movie loses its literary merit – I’m assuming that’s what you meant with the ‘netflix’ comment. (The Great Gatsby was made into a movie)

Just because Tolkien is the father of modern fantasy literature (yes I did say ‘fantasy literature’) I will use another of his quotes:

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” – Fellowship of the Ring

I have lots of favorites, but Oscar Wilde’s are invariably wonderful. One I especially like is: “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.”

I honestly don’t really have any favorites, but the two that popped into my head when I read your question were:
“It takes two people to make you and one person to die. That is how the world is going to end.” -As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
“Charlie, people accept the love they think they deserve.” -The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Those might not be verbatim since it’s coming from the top of my head.

‘Tis now the witching—’

’“Hour of night!”’

’“When churchyards yawn,”’

’“And graves give up their dead.”’

At the end of this quotation in dialogue, each gentleman struck an attitude, and immediately subsiding into prose walked into the office.

The old curiosity shop- Charles Dickens

and here’s another favourite:

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
Ecclesiastes 12:12

“NOT MY DAUGHTER, YOU BITCH!”
Mrs. Weasley – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows

@SABOTEUR hahahaha Molly kicks so much ass.

@MacBean Who would have guessed?

@SABOTEUR Anyone who was paying attention from the beginning, dammit! I also scoff at people who didn’t realize how EFFING AWESOME McGonagall is until book five or so. Get with the program, folks!

Yes sir.