What are your favourite literary quotes of all time?

[Mer]

Some of mine 

 

“But in my arms, she was always Lolita” —Vladimir Nabakov, Lolita 

 

“It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell.” —Claire Morgan, The Price of Salt or Carol

 

“Rebecca slashing at her horse; Rebecca seizing life with her two hands; Rebecca, triumphant, leaning down from the minstrel’s gallery with a smile on her lips” —Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca

 

Spoiler

Following this thread for the next time I need insta captions lol 

 

[takeitdoen]

I think some of the romantics on here would love Jean Cocteau's La voix humaine, which is a play but is essentially a 70 minute, one-sided phone conversation where a woman pleads with her man to not leave her (and she then gives up and kills herself). Lots of gems in there but the one that really sticks out (from Daniel Raggett's translation) is:

 

"And I had a dream. I dreamed of this. I woke up really suddenly all happy because all of this - what's happening right now - was all a dream, and when I realised it was real, that I was actually alone, that I didn't have my head tucked in its place between your neck and your shoulder, and my legs tangled up with your legs, I felt that I couldnt, that I - could - not - live -"

 

I haven't read it, but this quote has stuck with me for a number of years from Mark Twain's Autobiography (clipped since it goes on about religion and frankly BORING):

 

"But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most . . ." 

 

idk why I love this quote, I read it like 10 years ago and I still remember it. Maybe because it's so wholesome - from Neil Gaiman's American Gods:

 

"They had been sleeping together for a week now. Sam wondered if this was it, the relationship she'd been waiting for all her life. She told herself that it was just brain chemicals and pheromones that made her happy when she saw Natalie, and perhaps that was what it was; still, all she knew for sure was that she smiled when she saw Natalie, and that when they were together she felt comfortable and comforted."

 

1 hour ago, Mer Boy said:

Following this thread for the next time I need insta captions lol 

omg do NOT be the guy who just posts literature as captions, I promise you will look back and cringe.

[house of balloons]

i won't not fuck you the fuck up. 

[takeitdoen]

I also like this quote from the 21st century poet Lana del Rey:

I'm not gonna lie the traffic I was just caught in was Trumatic

[Mer]

26 minutes ago, takeitdoen said:

omg do NOT be the guy who just posts literature as captions, I promise you will look back and cringe.

...I run a literary review/book club Instagram account...

[genghis khan]

There is animalism in the soul, and the body has its moments of spirituality 

 

From the picture of Dorian Gray 

[takeitdoen]

18 minutes ago, Mer Boy said:

...I run a literary review/book club Instagram account...

Ahaha good! That is a lot less cringe that just taking random quotes and pairing them with a selfie 

[lamms]

"Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!"

- 1984, George Orwell. It's not a profound quote, but it's burned into my memory how Winston betrays Julia and it breaks my heart every time I reread the book.

 

"If you love me as you say you do," she whispered, "make it so that I am at peace."

- Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy. Such a great book, with some of the realest characters.

 

Also since comics are partially literature, here's a strip from Calvin and Hobbes worth a read:

What's your instagram handle? I'm curious to see what you've reviewed and how

[takeitdoen]

4 minutes ago, lamms said:

"Do it to Julia! Not me! Julia! I don't care what you do to her. Tear her face off, strip her to the bones. Not me! Julia! Not me!"

 

This one is BONE CHILLING. 

 

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

 

[Nobody]

“But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn't do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn't in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get.” - Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar 

[West Coast]

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

[Platinum Greenwich]

"I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't."

 

I believe this is from Lolita - but could be another of Nabokov's books, I don't remember.

[Mer]

42 minutes ago, Skid Row Cherry Pie said:

"I need you, the reader, to imagine us, for we don't really exist if you don't."

 

I believe this is from Lolita - but could be another of Nabokov's books, I don't remember.

Yes it is from Lolita 

[Dark Angel]

"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. 

[longtimeman]

Quote

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.

downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I’ve been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues shout blind on the phonograph

the rhythm the rhythm—and your memory in my head three years after—And read Adonais’ last triumphant stanzas aloud—wept, realizing how we suffer—

And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember, prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of Answers—and my own imagination of a withered leaf—at dawn—

Dreaming back thru life, Your time—and mine accelerating toward Apocalypse,

the final moment—the flower burning in the Day—and what comes after,   

looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city

a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed—

like a poem in the dark—escaped back to Oblivion—

- Allen Ginsberg, 'Kaddish', 1959

(I know it's long, but the whole poem is long and I had to cut it off somewhere).

[Make me your Dream Life]

not really literary, but: 

" This morning, with her, having coffee." - Johnny Cash, on being asked a description of what paradise was. 

can't really think of much else rn, but nice thread. 

[FredRed]

I am not that literary but my favorite quote is supposedly from Andy Warhol.

When asked by a reporter, "What's art?", he replied

“Most people in America think Art is a man's name.”

[West Coast]

This is probably my favourite quote ever. It's from 'Les Fleurs du mal' (The Flowers of evil) by famed French poet Charles Baudelaire. Probably his most revered work. It's from the poem called 'Le voyage' (The journey).

 

Mais les vrais voyageurs sont ceux-là seuls qui partent
Pour partir, coeurs légers, semblables aux ballons,
De leur fatalité jamais ils ne s'écartent,
Et, sans savoir pourquoi, disent toujours : Allons !

 

However true adventurers are those that leave

To leave, lighthearted, like balloons

From their fatalities they never stray away

And, not knowing why, they always say: Go !

 

I don't know if my traduction renders justice to the original version. But, this poem and most particularly this excerpt, just evokes the sentiment that real adventurers are fearless, bold and they're always ready to go onto the next big thing. Always eager and awaiting adventures. I don't know why, but I've always found that particular poem to be beautiful and cheerful. 

 

[IanadeIrey]

22 hours ago, 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. 

I was looking for this exact quote so I could post it on here! Great minds think alike 

 

Sylvia’s writing is always chilling. This is just one example  

[Mer]

Not exactly a “great literary work”, YA novel but:

 

“And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”

—Kristen White, The Chaos of the Stars