Does anyone have any favourite quotes from books, short stories or anything else they have read? The reason I ask is because I have just found one of mine, and wanted to share it with you lovely people. It is from this quarters edition of Granta magazine, form an article by Darryl Pinckney :

Or you could go around in a nervous silence for days, as if the city had been depopulated, leaving only an architecture of signs, layer upon layer, and a dialogue between vanished buildings and their usurpers.

This reminded me of my early days as a 'nervous' student in London, quite a few years ago now. It sent a funny little shiver down my spine. I've had a few medicinal drinks at this point so that may have helped. Anyway does anyone else has any favourite short quotes?

Sam, a few quotes that have managed to keep me going:

"All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream."
-Edgar Allen Poe


"If you are going through hell, keep going."
-Winston Churchill


"Death only comes for you when you've given up on life."
- Anon.

Steven

All art belongs to the same period. Catch it by accent and not by chronology. Ask 'where does the emphasis fall?' not the antiquarianism of where and when. Art is not archaeology.

That's from "Art & Lies" by Jeanette Winterson. Every time I read it I want to be reading a book in one hand and writing a book with the other. Highly recommend it.

Huggs

Ralph

The best victory is when the opponent surrenders of its own accord before there are any actual hostilities...It is best to win without fighting.

The Art of War, Sun Tzu

Every time I read it I want to be reading a book in one hand and writing a book with the other.

Ralph, that's a pretty amazing quote all of its own. The quote my sometime writing partener and use is "I've gone into the house." It applies when something you've written is way way off left field and entering the world of weird, there is a back story but it's too silly to repeat.

<Added>

Whoops, I thought I was on the Bizarre Sayings forum, oh well I suppose it still applies, but it's not a bone fide quote, just ours.

Hey there --

What I have here is someone else paraphrasing Carlyle (whom I really know nothing about), but which really strikes a chord:

"...often inventing the idea of a book is just as effective as writing it".

Food for thought!

Anne Marie

WHen the main character goes to bed alone for the first time in four years.

"I had kept my wrist watch on cause there was no one to scratch."

Alan Warner, Morvern Caller

Brilliant

Just to clarify something for you 'quote' is, in fact, the verb and I believe that 'quotation' is the noun that you are looking for! There's a 'quotation' worth remembering... (sorry I am a prescriptive pedant.)

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday[/qoute] Kahlil Gibran - The Prophet Like (0) Helpful (0) Made Me Think (0) Made Me Smile (0) Pure Genius (0)

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