Literary Quote I Like

Yes, I'm more and more convinced it's not to do with old forms or new forms, it's what someone writes not even thinking about form, but writing what flows freely from his heart.
--Konstantin Gavrilovich Treplev in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull

Literary Quote I Like

It must be the business of the critic to soar that he shall see the sun, even tho' its orb be far below the horizon.
--Bernhardt J. Hurwood, My Savage Muse: The Story of My Life: Edgar Allan Poe

Literary Quote I Like

You know, one thing really mystifies me about you crackers. The way good Christian white Americans treated the black man in the ‘50s we’re lucky we have one city left standing, and Martin Luther King was a man who could have said, all right, people, go to it, burn this country down. But he didn’t. And all you can do after some white trash shot him, is run him into the ground.
--O’Hanrahan in Wilton Barnhardt's Gospel

Literary Quote I Like

“Feudalism and socialism,” sneered Emil. “As if those were the only choices. A science-fiction writer has a duty, I think, to be progressive. He should be seeking to invent new systems, not glorifying old ones that have become archaic.”

Yolanda shrugged and looked at her feet. “I would have said that his only obligation is to stimulate thought,” she said. “To inspire the reader to consider existing realities in new ways.”
--Robert Rodi, Closet Case

Literary Quote I Like

She didn’t seem to hear. “How many were in that car, Andrea?”

“I saw five, I think.”

“That is what I saw, too, and I have such very good eyes.”

“What was the license number of that car, Andrea?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t have time -- ”

“I did. D3827. And I have such a very good memory.”

“Julie, don’t, you’re frightening me. Why aren’t you crying?”

“I am, where you can’t see it. Come with me, Andrea, I’m going back inside the church.”

“To pray?”

“No, to make a vow. Another vow to Nick.”
--Cornell Woolrich, The Bride Wore Black

Literary Quote I Like

So much bad theology and empty talk about faith over works. Better the dispirited cynic complaining as she dishes free food in the soup kitchen than the pieties of cloistered prelates, theologians, purveyors of empty rituals, thesis-writers, makers of religious regulations. If you’ve done no good for anyone in your life, then to Hell with you! Simple as that.
--The Celestial Narrator in Wilton Barnhardt's Gospel

Literary Quote I Like

You must not forget that a monster is only a variation, and that to a monster the norm is monstrous.
--John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Literary Quote I Like

Look, kid, don’t try to label things. Words foul you. You call a guy a printer or a lush or a pansy or a truck driver and you think you pasted a label on him. People are complicated; you can’t label 'em with a word.
--Ambrose Hunter in Fredric Brown’s The Fabulous Clipjoint

Literary Quote I Like

My dear imam, you must understand —- the Americans are idealistic to the point where they must lower their thermostat two degrees. Then they become very practical.
--Dominique Delamer-Noir in Christopher Buckley's Florence of Arabia

Literary Quote I Like

She wanted to excuse him because he was forced to be an insurance salesman when he really wanted to be out there on the gridiron again, but I want to be President and I’m an automobile salesman and I don’t go around giving women black eyes. 
--Donald E. Westlake, “Nackles”

Literary Quote I Like

“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”
--Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Literary Quote I Like

Yet who shall declare the dark theme a positive handicap? Radiant with beauty, the Cup of the Ptolemies was carven of onyx.
--H. P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”

Literary Quote I Like

How easy it is, Doctor, to be a philosopher on paper, and how hard it is in life!
--Konstantin Treplev in Anton Chekhov's The Seagull

Literary Quotes I Like

Rudolfo Anaya, Zia Summer
Wilton Barnhardt, Gospel
Wilton Barnhardt, Gospel
Anthony Boucher, The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars
Fredric Brown, The Fabulous Clipjoint
Christopher Buckley, Florence of Arabia
Anton Chekhov, The Seagull
Anton Chekhov, The Seagull
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens, Bleak House
Ben Elton, Popcorn
Guy Endore, The Werewolf of Paris
Bernhardt J. Hurwood, My Savage Muse: The Story of My Life: Edgar Allan Poe
Gary Jennings, Aztec
H. A. Keller, Yesterday's Sin
Rudyard Kipling, “Lispeth”
H.P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”
Warren Murphy and James Mullaney, The New Destroyer # 1: Guardian Angel
Robert Rodi, Closet Case
Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Donald Westlake, “Nackles”
Cornell Woolrich, The Bride Wore Black

Literary Quote I Like

“Hi,” I said. “Omnes mundum facimus.”

“That's all right. I don't need the magic phrase. But as long as we're on the subject, have you worked it out yet?”

I had, finally. “It's a comeback,” I told him. “To that thing people say when they don't want to be blamed for a bad situation: 'I didn't make the world, I only live in it.'”
--Matt Ruff, Bad Monkeys

Literary Quote I Like

Alas! Life is obstinate and clings closest where it is most hated.
--Victor Frankenstein in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein

Literary Quote I Like

“It's you who are the stick-in-the-mud,” I said. “Look, I'll show you. Here,” I said, opening up a volume, “is a quotation from an ancient Egyptian papyrus. The young people no longer obey the old. The laws that ruled their fathers are trampled underfoot. They seek only their own pleasure and have no respect for religion. They dress indecently and their talk is full of impudence. Do you find yourself depicted there? There always was a younger generation and there always will be. And the younger generation will always think it smart to thumb its nose at its elders.”
--Guy Endore, The Werewolf of Paris

Literary Quote I Like

We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the subject of conversation; and that it invariably interrupted Mr. Jarndyce, and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the other who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all.
--Charles Dickens, Bleak House

Literary Quote I Like

It just seems to me that half of America lives in hell and the other half gets its rocks off watching.
--Scout in Ben Elton's Popcorn

Literary Quote I Like

Or, and this he didn't like to admit even to himself, perhaps he had become a private investigator because in his daydreams he saw himself as a hero.
--Rudolfo Anaya, Zia Summer