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Original poster

Geek me up. Your favourite literary quotes? Name the text and add your own.

221 replies

ClawsandEffect · 30/09/2025 11:24

Better never means better for everyone.

Unsex me here.

OP posts:
Pieceofpurplesky · 30/09/2025 22:26

GinToBegin · 30/09/2025 22:22

‘The heart dies a slow death, shedding each hope like leaves until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.’ Bleak but beautiful.

Memoirs of a Geisha? Beautifully written book.

CordeliaNaismithVorkosigan · 30/09/2025 22:27

Another prose favourite:

The only privilege I claim for my sex - and it is no very great one, you need not covet it - is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone

Cinaferna · 30/09/2025 22:27

Vivisays · 30/09/2025 22:13

Katherine Earnshaw - Wuthering Heights

“Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.”

Show quote history

King Lear

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green heart

Cinaferna · 30/09/2025 22:28

CordeliaNaismithVorkosigan · 30/09/2025 22:27

Another prose favourite:

The only privilege I claim for my sex - and it is no very great one, you need not covet it - is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone

Is that Persuasion - Jane Austen?

GinToBegin · 30/09/2025 22:29

Pieceofpurplesky · 30/09/2025 22:26

Memoirs of a Geisha? Beautifully written book.

Edited
Show quote history

It is, yes. That quote always makes my heart hurt a little bit, but it’s achingly lovely.

Gonksmum · 30/09/2025 22:30

Mother died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know.

CordeliaNaismithVorkosigan · 30/09/2025 22:32

It is, @Cinaferna!

@Gonksmum, is yours The Outsider?

Needlenardlenoo · 30/09/2025 22:32

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 30/09/2025 22:04

Isn't that The Crow Road?

Show quote history

Yes!

I must re-read it.

atiaofthejulii · 30/09/2025 22:37

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 30/09/2025 22:13

Streptocock Gee to Banbury T, to see a fine bathroom and wc.

Is that Brave New World?

"It was love at first sight." (First line, as I'm sure it's not a unique sentence!)

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 30/09/2025 22:39

ChristmasCalamity · 30/09/2025 21:44

placemats where is the overflow pipe quotation from? I want to read that book.

I think I have too many to name. I'll have to choose just a few.

I don't want to wrong anybody, so I won't go so far as to say that she actually wrote poetry. But her conversation to my mind was of a nature calculated to excite the liveliest suspicions.

"Plum puffs won't minister to a mind diseased."

I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

The plum puffs quote is from Anne of Green Gables.

Grumpyoldpersonwithcats · 30/09/2025 22:40

atiaofthejulii · 30/09/2025 22:37

Is that Brave New World?

"It was love at first sight." (First line, as I'm sure it's not a unique sentence!)

Show quote history

It is.👍

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 30/09/2025 22:43

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you! - and full as much heart!

Snugglemonkey · 30/09/2025 22:44

Pieceofpurplesky · 30/09/2025 22:25

It's one of the best @Snugglemonkey, DS sobbed when I read it to him ... I can still picture his little lip wobbling for hours after.

Show quote history

My dd sobbed at Paw Patrol earlier because Skye looked as if she was in danger. I think it might be a while before I can share it! 🤣

ronconcoke · 30/09/2025 22:46

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 30/09/2025 22:43

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you! - and full as much heart!

Jane Eyre!

Snugglemonkey · 30/09/2025 22:47

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 30/09/2025 22:43

Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you! - and full as much heart!

Jane Eyre

TooExtraImmatureCheddar · 30/09/2025 22:53

Yes, @ronconcoke and @Snugglemonkey !

slowgraffiti · 30/09/2025 23:09

Nothing famous, but I liked this from the current book I’m reading:

His father had always contended that the essence of politics was not to bring about the good, but to compensate for its absence.

Snugglemonkey · 30/09/2025 23:18

It is much safer to be feared than loved, because love is preserved by obligation, which, owing to the baseness of men is broken at every opportunity for their advantage, but fear preserves you by a dread of punishment, which never fails.

cornbunting · 30/09/2025 23:18

"Yes, Jonathan, yes, I can see the light! I can see the light!"

One of my favourite books as a child, it still makes me cry now. I'll be delighted if anyone recognises it!

OctoberaddsagaleWindandslushandrainandhail · 30/09/2025 23:28

CordeliaNaismithVorkosigan · 30/09/2025 22:24

Importance of Being Earnest! Spoken by Miss Prism. I love that line.

ETA: that was for @Vivisays

Abandon hope, all of you who enter here.

Edited

Is it Hell? Dante’s Inferno.

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…

… It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

atiaofthejulii · 30/09/2025 23:47

cornbunting · 30/09/2025 23:18

"Yes, Jonathan, yes, I can see the light! I can see the light!"

One of my favourite books as a child, it still makes me cry now. I'll be delighted if anyone recognises it!

Oh my goodness, is that The Brothers Lionheart?

Read that to my kids and had to warn them that I would weep copiously at the beginning and the end!

highlandcoo · 30/09/2025 23:59

"I know it is just plain red, and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow."

MsGrumpytrousers · 01/10/2025 00:14

Cinaferna · 30/09/2025 22:27

King Lear

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green heart

Show quote history

That’s Dylan Thomas and I remember it from my A level course forty years ago!

MsGrumpytrousers · 01/10/2025 00:16

atiaofthejulii · 30/09/2025 23:47

Oh my goodness, is that The Brothers Lionheart?

Read that to my kids and had to warn them that I would weep copiously at the beginning and the end!

Show quote history

I thought this must be Jonathan Livingston Seagull - one of those funny little books that sells a million then disappears without a trace.

atiaofthejulii · 01/10/2025 00:20

highlandcoo · 30/09/2025 23:59

"I know it is just plain red, and it breaks my heart. It will be my lifelong sorrow."

More Anne!