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Favourite Literary Quotes

62 replies

SaraHoliday · 09/06/2026 23:51

This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

  • Hamlet -
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Philandbill · 11/06/2026 22:23

SkippitySkoppity · 11/06/2026 21:45

'I have never seen a dead body or a female nipple. This is what comes from living in a cul de sac'

Adrian Mole

Adrian at his best 😁

SkippitySkoppity · 11/06/2026 21:45

'I have never seen a dead body or a female nipple. This is what comes from living in a cul de sac'

Adrian Mole

SkippitySkoppity · 11/06/2026 21:43

'Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted'

Pride and Prejudice

(a great quote that I adapt for many situations, usually pertaining to locations slightly less fancy shmancy than Pemberley)

Pieceofpurplesky · 11/06/2026 21:43

'I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship'

• Amy, Little Women
Also
'I can be changed by what happens to me but I refuse to be reduced by it'
•Maya Angelou

Thewalrusandthecarpenter · 11/06/2026 21:41

One who loved not wisely, but too well

Othello

Thewalrusandthecarpenter · 11/06/2026 21:40

That perceptible hush which precedes a crisis

The Portrait of a Lady

Thewalrusandthecarpenter · 11/06/2026 21:39

Absence implies presence; absence is not non existence

A Passage to India

MsAmerica · 11/06/2026 21:36

I get the feeling that this is a rabbit hole as endless as Alice's.

frenella · 11/06/2026 03:33

As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport.

  • Earl of Gloucester in King Lear
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SaraHoliday · 11/06/2026 03:29

"Now I must give one smirk and then we may be rational again."

  • Jane Austen -
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SaraHoliday · 11/06/2026 03:20

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it."

  • Roal Dahl -
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SaraHoliday · 11/06/2026 03:19

"If adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village she must seek them abroad."

  • Jane Austen -
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Philandbill · 10/06/2026 22:40

"The place didn't look the same but it felt the same; sensations clutched and transformed me. I stood outside some concrete and plate-glass tower-block, picked a handful of eucalyptus leaves from a branch, crushed them in my hand, smelt, and tears came to my eyes. Sixty-seven-year-old Claudia, on a pavement awash with packaged American matrons, crying not in grief but in wonder that nothing is ever lost, that everything can be retrieved, that a lifetime is not linear but instant. That, inside the head, everything happens at once."
Penelope Lively - Moon Tiger

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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 11:44

We are all broken, that's how the light gets in.

– Ernest Hemingway

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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 11:42

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Arran2024 · 10/06/2026 11:13

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard" from The Good Soldier.

And

"The past is a different country, they do things differently there" from The Go Between

thisoldcity · 10/06/2026 09:42

'Sit by my side and let the world slip; we shall ne'er be younger.'
The Taming Of the Shrew

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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 09:36

"But there are moments when one has to choose between living one’s own life, fully, entirely,
completely — or dragging out some false, shallow, degrading existence that the world in its hypocrisy demands."

  • Lady Windermere's Fan -
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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 09:32

"In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."

  • Lady Windermere's Fan -
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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 09:29

"Take me as I am, whoever I am.”

  • The Winter’s Tale -
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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 09:27

"I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.”

  • Great Expectations -
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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 09:25

"He stepped down, trying not to look long at her, as if she were the sun, yet he saw her, like the sun, even without looking.”

  • Anna Karenina -
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SaraHoliday · 10/06/2026 09:23

When you fall in love, it is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake, and then it subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots are to become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the desire to mate every second of the day. It is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every part of your body. No … don’t blush. I am telling you some truths. For that is just being in love; which any of us can convince ourselves we are. Love itself is what is left over, when being in love has burned away. Doesn’t sound very exciting, does it? But it is!”

  • Captain Corelli’s Mandolin -
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FizzingAda · 10/06/2026 09:21

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

GrumpySparkler · 10/06/2026 08:05

This is the beginning - from 'I' to 'we'.
If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself....For the quality of owning freezes you for ever into 'I', and cuts you off for ever from the 'we'.

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck