Hi Everyone!

Chatterbox: Blab About Books

Book quotes
Hi Everyone! ...

Hi Everyone!

I feel like Blab About Books has been a little underloved recently, so I thought about threads, and I'm not sure if this one has been done before, but I'm doing now, so, AHEM.

Favorite lines/quotes from books! Have you ever felt like an author just pulls you in with the first line of a book? Or like there was an AMAZING quote that you just wanted to remember forever? Or one that you love because it's so true for you? This is the thread for you! Please post your quote, plus the book that it came from and the authors name (If you can remember it.)

'Now for those of you who know anything about blind children, you are aware that they make the very best thieves.'
First line of Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier 

'Reader, I married him.'
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte 

'Call me The Giver.'
The Giver by Lois Lowry. 

submitted by Hummingbird, The Backyard Flowers
(November 30, 2019 - 1:32 pm)

"Richard paused for a moment. If ever, he decided, they made disorganization an Olympic sport, he could be disorganized for Britain."

-- Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman

this is me except replace 'disorganization' with 'social anxiety'

submitted by Artemis
(December 1, 2022 - 4:00 pm)

"They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices.

"But they were made out of thin invisible steel." -- Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

 

"When I meet people, I always imagine what world hides inside them. Most people are the same: rows and rows of busy cubicles with pictures of their kids tacked to the walls and piles of paperwork waiting to go somewhere. I prefer the different ones. Those are the people I love to photograph, the reason I try so hard to shrink entire worlds down into a single shot." -- Ashley Schumacher, Amelia Unabridged 

"I wonder what worlds he sees behind my eyes." -- Ashley Schumacher Amelia Unabridged 

submitted by Artemis, Lochbrook
(December 26, 2022 - 3:53 pm)

“The prince enjoyed unusually good health even among princes; both by gymnastic exercises and by taking good care of his body he had brought himself to such a state of physical fitness that in spite of the excesses he indulged in when enjoying himself, he looked as fresh as a big shiny green Dutch cucumber.” — Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.

submitted by Hex, this needs to be topped
(January 2, 2023 - 4:21 pm)

"a big shiny green Dutch cucumber"!? Of all the similes!

Not a flattering comparison, take it how you will.

submitted by Poinsettia
(January 6, 2023 - 10:06 pm)

"So we drove on toward death through the cooling twilight." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

"If bringing down the wall would require you to fly, you must believe that you can fly. Otherwise, when the decisive moment comes, you will surely discover that you have no wings." -- Patrick Carman, The Dark Hills Divide 

submitted by Artemis, Area X
(January 5, 2023 - 9:05 pm)

"Look, your window is right across from mine! We could throw things at each other!"

-Keefe, Keeper of the Lost Cities

XD 

submitted by Darkvine
(January 9, 2023 - 11:17 am)

oh, that's great--

submitted by Artemis, Area X
(January 9, 2023 - 5:14 pm)

"Friend or enemy?" asked Nancy breathlessly.

"Well, not an enemy," said Captain Flint. "Distressed British seaman, more like."

"Yes," said Captain John, "but I didn't come only to warn you. I was going to tell you what the charcoal-burners had asked us to tell Nancy and Peggy. Then I was going to tell you you were all wrong about that paper you put in my tent. Then I was going to tell you I'd never been near the houseboat. And then I was going to declare war."

"Well, I call that really friendly," said Captain Flint. "Do you hear that, Nancy?" he said, as they came back to the others who had come up to the camp. "Do you hear that? He was coming to declare war on me."

"Of course he was," Nancy said. "We all were."

-- Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons 

submitted by Artemis, Area X
(January 9, 2023 - 5:17 pm)

"Funny, she thought, that even monsters had fragile hearts."

--V.E. Schwab, Our Dark Duet 

submitted by Artemis, the North Side
(January 12, 2023 - 1:50 pm)

"You wouldn't."

"No, I wouldn't. And I'm the villain.  What do you suppose that says about you?"

--ND Stevenson, Nimona 

submitted by Tsuki the Skywolf
(January 13, 2023 - 11:02 am)

Seven little foxes in the twisted Antler Wood, listening to stories much later than they should.-

Scary Stories for Young Foxes by Christian McKay Heidicker

submitted by Suki, age 13 eons, Nowhere
(January 30, 2023 - 10:24 am)

And something stirred inside Sophie as she watched Tarina seal the pod tight–a kind of absolute determination that had her promising Silveny and Greyfell that they would see that tiny baby again.

Keeper of the Lost Cities: Flashback 

submitted by Vespera, age 11 Eons, The Land of 10,000 Lakes
(February 6, 2023 - 8:21 pm)

"O day and night, but this is wondrous strange." -- Shakespeare, Hamlet

"Outside the truck, the cold desert sky pushed up and out and away, a story without ending." -- Maggie Stiefvater, All the Crooked Saints

 

submitted by Artemis, Denmark
(February 7, 2023 - 2:43 pm)

i just really love the way he describes these suits. "sartorially dyslexic"

"They wore black suits, which were slightly greasy, slightly frayed, and even Richard, who counted himself among the sartorially dyslexic, felt there was something odd about the cut of the coats. They were the kind of suits that might have been made by a tailor two hundred years ago who had had a modern suit described to him but had never actually seen one. The lines were wrong, and so were the grace notes." -- Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere

submitted by Artemis
(February 22, 2023 - 4:10 pm)

"Now she felt a trifle lightheaded because life had been given back to her and for a little while her eyes were clear enough to see how good it was and how deeply she loved it. She breathed in the salt air, she felt the sun hot on her bare head, the breeze fresh in her face, she heard the waves breaking slowly and foaming over the sand, she looked up the long stretch of golden beach between the sea and the dark, palmetto-fringed jungle of myrtle and cassena, and her soul felt stretched because she was really knowing these things for the first time.

"She loved just being alive - even when she was terrified, even in pain, even - yes, even in sorrow, though she had never realized it until now. [...] As if life, as if living were not to be reckoned by joy or sorrow, but by the completeness with which you gave yourself to it."

-Elizabeth Janet Gray, Beppy Marlowe of Charles Town

I love this whole quote. It's so true. It's so important to truly love being alive, not just the fun things about our lives but the actual, deep, fundamental meaning of being here on Earth.

submitted by Poinsettia, age immortal, Charles Town
(February 23, 2023 - 9:52 pm)