What are your favourite literary quotes of all time?

[suicideblonde 2,704]

Spoiler

“Cal said, ‘I was afraid I had you in me.’

‘You have,’ said Kate.

‘No, I haven’t. I’m my own. I don’t have to be you.’

‘How do you know that?’ she demanded.

‘I just know. It just came to me whole. If I’m mean, it’s my own mean.’

‘This Chinaman has really fed you some pap. What are you looking at me like that for?’

Cal said, ‘I don’t think the light hurts your eyes. I think you’re afraid.'”

- John Steinbeck, East Of Eden

[Jizzy Grant 150]

"Not Without Knowledge" - Tennessee Williams

 

"A kiss brings pain ---

Approvingly I quote

These words that sage Rodrigo wrote ---

And yet I'll kiss again."

 

When I was in college, I was very lonely and lovesick and I used to visit this cafe near my school and they had a board where they would post a different poem everyday. On the day that I saw this on there, it was only the first and last lines - "A kiss brings pain... and yet I'll kiss again!" It's stayed with me ever since.

[Liz Taylor Blues 19,052]

“If people reach perfection they vanish, you know.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

 

Honestly the whole book

[Liz Taylor Blues 19,052]

On 9/10/2020 at 6:28 AM, takeitdoen said:

This one is BONE CHILLING. 

 

When they meet again with no emotions. “I betrayed you,' she said baldly. 'I betrayed you,' he said.

 

Orwell is my fave

[Mer 64,270]

“In the end, the tortures tearing the Lisbon girls pointed to a simple reasoned refusal to accept the world as it was handed down to them, so full of flaws.”

— The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

[bummersummer 2,219]

"Loneliness is the human condition. Cultivate it. The way it tunnels into you allows your soul room to grow. Never expect to outgrow loneliness. Never hope to find people who will understand you, someone to fill that space. An intelligent, sensitive person is the exception, the very great exception. If you expect to find people who will understand you, you will grow murderous with disappointment. The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way.”
― Janet Fitch, White Oleander

 

a lot of v good, poetic quotes in that whole book 

[Mash Tragic 3,945]

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[Trash Magic 28,574]

No specific ones stick in my mind but I'm currently reading Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck and there are so many beautiful passages reflecting on the passing of time and home

[Dark Angel 205,778]

i know this is technically a full poem and not a quote but i've always loved "annabel lee" by edgar allan poe. i remember way back in middle school when we were learning about edgar allan poe they had us read this poem and i was shook. it's very haunting, but equally well written, and lovely.

[genghis khan 5,111]

Not necessarily a favourite of mine, but it made me understand why Lana might see herself in Sylvia 

 

“Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars--to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording--all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...”

― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

[knives 2,524]

“Male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? Up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. Even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. You are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. You are your own voyeur.”

 

from the robber bride by margaret atwood. i've never read the book, but this quote lives rent-free in my mind 

[LanaTheRay 1,453]

The opening line from this article from 1985 about Richard Ramirez

 

”The sickly youth who loved rock music, video games and Pepsi Cola -- but little else -- and who police now call the Night Stalker grew up on Ledo Street in El Paso, Texas, a block-long slash of concrete hedged in rusting cars and chain-link fences.”

 

[American Whore 52,155]

“Fourteen, and you’re taller than I will ever be. My legs are short and twisted, and I walk with difficulty. I require a special saddle to keep from falling off my horse. A saddle of my own design, you may be interested to know. It was either that or ride a pony. My arms are strong enough, but again, too short. I will never make a swordsman. Had I been born a peasant, they might have left me out to die, or sold me to some slaver’s grotesquerie. Alas, I was born a Lannister of Casterly Rock, and the grotesqueries are all the poorer. Things are expected of me. My father was the Hand of the King for twenty years. My brother later killed that very same king, as it turns out, but life is full of these little ironies. My sister married the new king and my repulsive nephew will be king after him. I must do my part for the honor of my House, wouldn’t you agree? Yet how? Well, my legs may be too small for my body, but my head is too large, although I prefer to think it is just large enough for my mind. I have a realistic grasp of 

my own strengths and weaknesses. My mind is my weapon. My brother has his sword, King Robert has his warhammer, and I have my mind … and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.” Tyrion tapped the leather cover of the book. “That’s why I read so much, Jon Snow.”

Tyrion Lannister to Jon Snow in Game of Thrones (Book 1) by George RR Martin

[99centlips 8,526]

On 9/11/2020 at 8:58 PM, LemonadeHeavens said:

"dying is an art, like everything else, i do it exceptionally well. i do it so it feels like hell, i do it so it feels real. i guess you could say i've a call" - sylvia plath, lady lazarus. 

 

“walking is an art, so is my body” 

[Pretty Dull 208]

Spoiler

"Sylvia..." - Lana Del Rey

 

[VioletPrincess 962]

So many lovely quotes in this thread 

[BluebirdXO 7,679]

"Bravery often demands a price."

                                                            - Lemony Snicket

[5Rick 2,925]

Spoiler

We did it for the right reasons.

 

Spoiler

For me it’s literary because that song is a POEM 

[BluebirdXO 7,679]

3 hours ago, BluebirdXO said:

"Bravery often demands a price."

                                                            - Lemony Snicket

 

 

And also:

 

“Just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean that it’s nonsense.”

[Alison by Slowdive 26,162]

"The secret of peace: a devout worship of the moment." - Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals

 

"The energy of attempt is greater than the surety of stasis. You too can be carved anew by the details of your devotions." - Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

 

"Sometimes solace won't do, / and there's no sleeping with what / you know, and advice / is obscene. / Sometimes there's a pity / only the self can give, amniotic, / a total curling in." - Stephen Dunn, Between Angels: Poems, "Clarities"

 

"I liked you at such heights that I am now buried in the sky." - Helene Cixous, Readings

 

"Those nights lying alone are not discontinuous with this cold hectic dream. This is who I am." - Anne Carson, The Glass Essay

 

"Words are never 'only words'; they matter because they define the contours of what we can do." - Slavoj Zizek, First As Tragedy, Then As Farce

 

"I do not write to keep. I write to touch the body of the instant with the tips of words." - Helene Cixous, Stigmata: Escaping Texts

 

"I am the daughter of myself. I am born of my own dream. My dream sustains me." - Rosario Castellanos, Selected Poems, "Wailing Wall"