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OK so I whipped out the Favorite Quotes list I've been keeping for years now...separated out all the wonderful Book Quotes, and voila! I give you...Book Quotes! :p

I perceive suddenly a speck of corruption. This speck is a tiny one: a gesture, a word, an object, a garment, something unexpected which appears (which dawns) from a region I had never suspected, and suddenly attaches the loved object to a commonplace world.

-Roland Barthes, A Lover

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  • 1 month later...

These are all from Carl Hiaasen's "Basket Case":

When Juan opens the door, I salute from the couch. He grabs a beer for himself and sits down in one of the matching faded armchairs. "The Marlins are playing," he says.

"That's a matter of opinion."

"Where's the TV?" Juan motions to the vacant space in the center of the wall unity. "Don't tell me you launched it off the balcony again."

That sometimes happens when I try to watch music videos. "It's pathetic," I say to my friend. "I'm not proud of myself."

"Who was it this time?"

"One of those 'boy bands.' I don't remember which."

---------------------------------

"You mean, like, fate. Don't tell me you believe in fate?"

"Not fate. Black irony. That's what I believe in."

Janet whistles. "Ever thought about changing jobs?"

"Can I ask what happened to your father?"

"He was screwing one of his students when her boyfriend showed up. It was, like, her nineteenth birthday. My father jumed out the dormitory window to get away, but six stories is a long way down. Too bad he taught English lit and not physics." Janet smiles ruefully. "That's why I'm not too worried about checking out at fifty-two."

"Gotcha," I say.

"I mean, there's fate, Jack, and then there's just plain stupidity."

---------------------------------

"You don't worry me," snarls the chairman and chief executive officer of Maggad-Feist Publishing Group, "You're a gnat on the radar screen."

"On the windshield you mean, " I say helpfully, "On a radar screen I would be a 'blip'."

"Fuck you."

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She put the key card in the lock of her room and the green light appeared - an omen, I felt, of the night of passion to come. She opened the door, and I followed her inside. She sat on the foot of the bed - just like in the movies - and pulled her shoes off. First the left, then the right. She was waering white socks, which I found rather endearing. She flexed the toes of both feet upward, then curled them downward as she collapsed backward on the bed.

I took a step toward her, prepared to fall on her in an embrace. But suddenly the foulest smell I have ever encountered assailed my nostrils. It literally pushed me backward. It was the exact rancid-cheese smell that homeless alchoholics on New York subways have. The kind that clears the whole subway car. No matter how many steps back I took, the intensity of the smell did not diminish. It filled the entire room, every available space.

I looked at her, lying back on the bed, wanton, oblivious. It was her feet. Her feet were stinking up the room.

I had to get out of there.

- The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists (Neil Strauss)

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

"Books say: she did this because. Life says: she did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense out of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense out of are other people's lives, never your own"

-Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

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(sorry it's not as exciting, but this is what I'm reading right now. :p )

There can be a great temptation to categorize yourself and others in terms of primary representation system. To make this error is to fall into the trap that has beset psychology: invent a set of categories and then cram people into them whether they fit or not. People are always richer than generalizations about them.

- Introducing Neuro-Linguistic Programming: Psychological Skills for Understanding and Influencing People

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Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

"Americans do drugs," says Agent Tattletale, "because they don't do leisure very well."

Instead, they do Percodans, Vicodine, Oxycontin.

------

Agent Tattletale, he says, "Americans are the world's best at doing their work."

And studying and competition.

But we suck when it comes time to relax.

There's no profit. No trophy.

Nothing at the Olympic Games goes to the Most Laidback Athlete.

No product endorsements for the World's Laziest anything.

His camera eye on auto-focus, he says, "We're great at winning and losing."

And nose grindstoning, but not accepting. Not shoulder shrugging and tolerance.

"Instead," he tells himself, "we have marijuana and television. Beer and Valium."

And health insurance.

To refill, as needed.

------

Onstage, the Missing Link says, "Every breath you take is because something has died."

Something or someone lived and died so you could have this life.

This mountain of dead, they lift you into daylight.

The Missing Link, he says, "Will the effort and energy and momentum of their lives..."

How will it find you?

How will you enjoy their gift?

Leather shoes and fried chicken and dead soldiers are only a tragedy if you waste their gift sitting in front of the television. Or stuck in traffic. Or stranded at some airport.

"How will you show all the creatures of history?" says the Missing Link.

How will you show their birth and work and death were worthwhile?

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Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk

People have a lot of reasons they get into giving foot jobs. The idea that you can give your family a better life. You can give your mom and dad a little comfort and security. A car, maybe. A condo on the beach in Florida.

The day you gave your folks the keys to that condo, that was the happiest day of your life. The day they cried and admitted they never thought their baby would ever make a living just rubbing people's stinky feet. That's a day you'll pay for for the rest of your life.

Don't laugh, but it's not illegal. You're doing a simple foot manipulation. Nothing sexual happens except your client has an orgasm that leaves them too weak to walk for the next couple days. Men or women, it doesn't matter. You work the right spot on their feet, and the come hard as a seizure. So hard there's a smell when they lose control of their bowels. So hard most clients can only look at you, drool running out one corner of their mouth, and motion with a trembling finger for you to take the stack of hundred-dollar bills on the dresser or the coffee table.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Inside the snow globe on my father's desk, there was a penguin wearing a red-and-white-striped scarf. When I was little my father would pull me into his lap and reach for the snow globe. He would turn it over, letting all the snow collect on the top, then quickly invert it. The two of us watched the snow fall gently around the penguin. The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this, he said, "Don't worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He's trapped in a perfect world."

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

When you meet people like myself who act foolhardily or spontaneously, it is easy, from a haven of routine and security, to mock or deplore us. But at the same time, in your hearts, there is a profound and unsettling envy of the freedom that is expressed in our careless actions.

- William Boyd, "The New Confessions"

You're not telling me anything I don't know already. "Relax your body, and the rest of you will lighten up." What's the point of saying that to me? If I relaxed my body now, I'd fall apart. I've always lived like this, and it's the only way I know how to go on living. If I relaxed for a second, I'd never find my way back. I'd go to pieces, and the pieces would be blown away. Why can't you see that?

- Haruki Murakami, ''Norwegian Word''

"Beauty was my mother's law, her religion. You could do anything you wanted, as long as you were beautiful, as long as you did things beautifully. If you weren't, you just didn't exist."

- Janet Fitch, ''White Oleander''

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  • 4 months later...

The eyes are a window to the soul. Literally. Looking unto the eyes of someone is an uncomfortable, intense experience for anyone. If you don’t believe me, pick a stranger sometime and just go up to them and stare them in the eye until, the movement where there’s a sudden acknowledgement of lowered barriers, that moment that inspires awkward silence and racing hearts. The eyes reveal a lot about a person. They express emotions and give clues to what thoughts are lurking behind them.

Nearly everyone underestimates how powerful the touch of another human being is. The need to be touched is something so primal, so fundamentally part of out existence as human beings that its true impact upon us cannot be put into words.

-Jim Butcher

“The way you get meaning into your life is to devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.”

When all this started, I asked myself, 'Am I going to withdraw from the world, like most people do, or am I going to live?' I decided I am going to live-or at least try to live-the way I want, with dignity, with courage, with humor, with composure.”

“No life is a waste. The only time we waste is the time we spend thinking we are alone.”

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”

“I traded lots of dreams for a bigger paycheck, and I never realized I was doing it,”

"Holding anger is a poison. It eats you from the inside. We think that hating is a weapon that attacks the person that harmed us. But hatred is a curved blade. And the harm we do, we do to ourselves."

-All from novels by Mitch Albom

"Dancing with death means being committed to the value of life, committed with your mind, heart, and soul, so that you are truly prepared to do what is necessary to preserve life."

War Wizard’s Primary Edict

It means only one thing, and everything: cut. Once committed to fight, cut. Everything else is secondary. Cut. That is your duty, your purpose, your hunger. There is no rule more important, no commitment that overrides that one. Cut.

The lines are a portrayal of the dance. Cut from the void, not from bewilderment. Cut the enemy as quickly and directly as possible. Cut with certainty. Cut decisively, resolutely. Cut into his strength. Flow through the gaps in his guard. Cut him. Cut him down utterly. Don't allow him a breath. Crush Him. Cut him without mercy to the depths of his spirit.

It is the balance to life: death. It is the dance with death.

Wizards First Rule

People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe its true, or because they’re afraid it might be true. Peoples’ heads are full of knowledge, facts and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.

Wizards Second Rule

The greatest harm can result from the best of intentions.

Wizards Third Rule

Passion rules reason.

Wizards Fourth Rule

There is magic in forgiveness; in the forgiveness you give, but more so in the forgiveness you receive.

Wizards Fifth Rule

Mind what people do, not only what they say for deeds will betray a lie.

Wizards Sixth Rule

The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason. The first law of reason is this: what exists, exists, what is, is and from this irreducible bedrock principle, all knowledge is built. It is the foundation from which life is embraced.

Thinking is a choice. Wishes and whims are not facts nor are they a means to discover them. Reason is our only way of grasping reality; it is our basic tool of survival. We are free to evade the effort of thinking, to reject reason, but we are not free to avoid the penalty of the abyss that we refuse to see. Faith and feelings are the darkness to reasons light. In rejecting reason, refusing to think, one embraces death.

Wizards Seventh Rule

Life is the future, not the past. The past can teach us, through experience, how to accomplish things in the future, comfort us with cherished memories, and provide the foundation of what has already been accomplished. But only the future holds life. To live in the past is to embrace what is dead. To live life to its fullest, each day must be created anew. As rational, thinking beings, we must use our intellect, not a blind devotion to what has come before, to make rational choices.

Wizards Eighth Rule

Deserve Victory.

Wizards Ninth Rule

A contradiction can not exist in reality. Not in part, nor in whole. To believe in a contradiction is to abdicate your belief in the existence of the world around you and the nature of the things in it, to instead embrace any random impulse that strikes your fancy – to imagine something is real simply because you wish it were. A thing is what it is, it is itself. There can be no contradictions.

Faith is a device of self-delusion, a sleight of hand done with words and emotions founded on any irrational notion that can be dreamed up. Faith is the attempt to coerce truth to surrender to whim. In simple terms, it is trying to breath life into a lie by trying to outshine reality with the beauty of wishes. Faith is the refuge of fools, the ignorant, and the deluded, not of thinking, rational men.

In reality, contradictions cannot exist. To believe in them you must abandon the most important thing you possess: your rational mind. The wager for such a bargain is your life. In such an exchange, you always lose what you have at stake.

Wizard's Tenth Rule

Willfully turning aside from the truth, is treason to oneself.

-All from Terry Goodkind

“Man can be destroyed, but not defeated”

“While much of life may seem meaningless, a man must do what a man must do. Doing it as well as he can without complaint or shirking is what gives meaning to a life.”

-Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and The Sea

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  • 2 years later...

This thread is gorgeous :wub: I read some great quotes :heart:

Some of my fav:

I love the ground under his feet, the air over his head, and everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks, and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether.

Cathy~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

If all else perished, and he remained, i should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn into a mighty stranger; I shall not seem a part of it.

Cathy~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Two words would comprehend my future - death and hell: existence after loosing her, would be hell.

Heathcliff~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I only wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground.

Cathy~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Yes, you may kiss me and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears; they'll blight you - they'll damn you. You loved me - then what right had you to leave me?

Heathcliff~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I cannot look down to this floor but her features are shaped in the flags! in every cloud, in every tree - filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day - I am sorrounded with her image.

Heathcliff~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist and that I have lost her.

Heathcliff~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I have to remind myself to breathe - almost to remind my heart to beat! :wub:

Heathcliff~Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I'm a big Wuthering Heights quotes fan :laugh:

I'm going to post from other books later :p

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Random ones:

Do just once what others say you can't do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.

Every second chance begins with a first step

Live as if you’ll live forever; live as if you’ll die today

If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more.

Mr.Knightley~Emma by Jane Austen

Selfishness must always be forgiven you know, because there is no hope of a cure.

Jane Austen

What is right to be done cannot be done too soon.

Jane Austen

There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart.

Jane Austen

An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason.

C. S. Lewis

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

C. S. Lewis

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.

C. S. Lewis

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.

Mark Twain

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I have some favourite quotes but I forgot them :p

"この場所を知らず 夢の地を目指し 夢の地に着いて この場所を知らず" from "Kino's Journey: the Beautiful World IV" by Keiichi Sigsawa

The english translation is "Wherever I go, there I am" (I don't like this translation=.=)

I love this quote but haven't read it before :p

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