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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Aibu to ask for your favourite quotes from books

226 replies

Ohrobin · 19/02/2019 20:59

Just that please!

Fav quotes from books and who wrote the book.

Cheers!

Mine is from Winnie the pooh - "how lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard"

OP posts:
AgnesNaismith · 22/02/2019 21:30

@EwItsAHooman what is that passage from? I’ve never read anything more true!!

AnnieAnt · 22/02/2019 21:33

"It was my Uncle George who discovered alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought."

And my absolute favourite, which I inwardly recall several times per week:

"Though hearing Horace speak of his Uncle Alaric and thinking of his own Uncle Fred, he felt like Noah listening to someone making a fuss about a drizzle."

The inimitable PG Wodehouse.

Although, it's a while since I read any Terry Pratchett but I used to love his writing too -
another author who gives pleasure as much through how he says things as what he says.

Lolly86 · 22/02/2019 21:39

Lots of lovely ones here😍
Some.of mine from.one of my favourite books (and movie) The Princess Bride - William Goldman

My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die!

Life isn't fair, it's just fairer thandeath that's all

Her heart was a secret garden and the walls were very high

taught myself languages because of you. I have made my body strong because I thought you might be pleased by a strong body. I have lived my life with only the prayer that some sudden dawn you might glance in my direction. I have not known a moment in years when the sight of you did not send my heart careening against my rib cage. I have not known a night when your visage did not accompany me to sleep. There has not been a morning when you did not flutter behind my waking eyelids.

3luckystars · 22/02/2019 21:46

@EwItsAHooman what is that book called? Your post has completely blown me away.

MissClareRemembers · 22/02/2019 21:55

‘’I suddenly realize that the bride and my brother are the “we” of me... I love the two of them so much, we belong to be together. I love them so much, because they are the “we” of me.’’

The Member Of The Wedding - Carson McCullers

It perfectly encapsulates the human yearning to just ‘belong’.

MissClareRemembers · 22/02/2019 22:00

Can we do poetry too?

For old forgotten far off things, and battles long ago

The Solitary Reaper - William Wordsworth

Just makes me pause for a second to think and breathe.

Clawdy · 22/02/2019 22:03

Poetry needs a separate thread, I think. There have been one or two already in the last year,

PierreBezukov · 22/02/2019 22:06

I must say that I take my hat off to Sainsbury's, they seem to attract a better class of person. I saw a vicar choosing toilet paper; he chose a four-roll pack of purple three-ply. He must have money to burn! He could have bought some shiny white and given the difference to the poor. What a hypocrite!"

Adrian Mole Grin

LaMarschallin · 22/02/2019 22:09

There are a couple I like when I'm feeling reckless. I don't know where I remember this from but it's:
Life's uncertain so eat your pudding first.
and the second is:
My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes and, oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light!
by Edna St Vincent Millay.
I also love a quote (when not feeling reckless) from "Madensky Square" by Eva Ibbotson. Susanna has been searching for her daughter (long story) for years and finally finds her - still a little girl - and is briefly ecstatic with plans of how she'll love her and bring her up. Then she sees her playing in the garden of her adoptive family, happy and loved. So she just walks away:
I was being good, you see. And, as a matter of fact, it nearly killed me.

Still gives me goosebumps.

LaMarschallin · 22/02/2019 22:11

Oops! Sorry!
Just saw the post about a separate poetry thread.
Ignore the ESVM Blush

mrbob · 22/02/2019 22:13

We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

I wish for all this to be marked on by body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography - to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience

The English Patient. The book is so utterly beautiful

Fifthtimelucky · 22/02/2019 22:25

Yes to lots of these, including the one by @Pursefirst, the Watership Down, Harry Potter and Brideshead Revisited ones and Captain Wentworth's letter in Persuasion.

Other favourites are:

Bleak House: 'The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself. Viewed in this light it becomes a coherent scheme and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once perceive that the purpose of the law is to make business for itself, at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble'. That might not be exactly right, but it's something like that. I learned it for A level in 1979!

Pride and Prejudice: the whole speech by Mrs Bennet after Lizzy has told her that she is engaged to Mr Darcy, but in particular 'Pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I hope he will overlook it' (and lots of other examples)

The Last Chronicle of Barsetshire: a number of passages, but these two are my favourites:

'By this time, Mr Crawley was looking full into Mr Toogood's face, and seeing that his cousin's eyes were streaming with tears began to get some insight into the man's character, and also some very dim insight into the facts which the man intended to communicate to himself. "I do not as yet fully understand you, sir," said he, "being perhaps in such matters somewhat dull of intellect, but it seemeth to me that you are messenger of glad tidings, whose feet are beautiful upon the mountains'.

and the description of Mr Harding's funeral is beautiful. This is a very abridged version:

'Up to this day, no one would have said specially that Mr Harding was a favourite in the town... But, now that he was gone, men and women told each other how good he had been. They remembered the sweetness of his smile, and talked of loving little words which he had spoken to them... In the transept they were joined by another clergyman whom no one had expected to see that day. The bishop was there, looking old and worn... since his wife's death, no one had seen him out of the palace... But there he was, and they made way for him into the procession behind the two ladies, and the archdeacon, when he saw it, resolved that there should be peace in his heart, if peace might be possible... And so they buried Mr Septimus Harding, formerly Warden of Hiram's Hospital in the city of Barchester, of whom the chronicler may say that that city never knew a sweeter gentleman or a better Christian' .

I must be due another re-read!

LaurieMarlow · 22/02/2019 22:26

‘’I suddenly realize that the bride and my brother are the “we” of me... I love the two of them so much, we belong to be together. I love them so much, because they are the “we” of me.’’

I read that book 25 years ago and that concept of the ‘we of me’ made such an impression. Carson McCullers is so underrated. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is just haunting.

AnneElliott · 22/02/2019 22:28

Blomptitude beat me to my favourite quote!

My second favourite is "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man of large fortune must be in want of a wife".

Also noted the end to a Tale of two Cities by a pp. I cried for ages after finishing that book.

Myusernameismud · 22/02/2019 22:32

Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read, which goes on for ever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.

The Last Battle-CS Lewis

Myusernameismud · 22/02/2019 22:33

I'm sure it's punctuated better than that, but I'm tired Confused

EwItsAHooman · 22/02/2019 22:45

The quote I posted is from The Poisonwood Bible.

Footlooseandfancyfree · 22/02/2019 22:45

You have done well, little Snowflake. Come home to me now - Paul Gallico

This reminds me of my childhood, and never fails to make me feel emotional!

CaveMum · 22/02/2019 22:54

Douglas Adams - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy:

“It is a well known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

Very appropriate for current times.

CaveMum · 22/02/2019 22:56

In fact, pretty much every quote listed here: bookriot.com/2012/05/25/the-42-best-lines-from-douglas-adams-the-hitchhikers-guide-to-the-galaxy-series/

crosser62 · 22/02/2019 22:56

But he died anyway...
Frank mccourt Angela’s Ashes.

Took my breath away turning the page seeing that. Then I cried and thought I would never stop.

Livpool · 22/02/2019 23:00

“We’ll be friends forever, won’t we, Pooh?” asked Piglet. “Even longer,” Pooh answered.”

My DS loves it too

Clawdy · 22/02/2019 23:01

"We would have been safe." Heart-breaking last line of Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close.

Livpool · 22/02/2019 23:02

"People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for."

And this from To Kill a Mockingbird

BrizzleMint · 22/02/2019 23:09

This is a lovely thread but also a very sad one. I appear to have a speck of dust in my eye.

Swipe left for the next trending thread