Share your favourite literary quote

[SheHasAWildHeart]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
~ Hamlet, William Shakespeare

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink

I Capture the Castle

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W B Yeats

We live as we dream - alone.

Heart of darkness, Joseph Conrad

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh!" he whispered. "Yes, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. "I just wanted to be sure of you.” A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

There are many more from that book (and from Piglet in particular) but that one away so makes my heart turn over and my eyes well up.

And
Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris

“Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.
The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist,'" says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."
"But," says Man, "The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED."
"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.
"Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.”
Douglas Adams

Princess the first one that popped into my mind was a Pooh quote too.

“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together... there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we're apart... I'll always be with you.”

All of The Eve of St Agnes but particularly:

"And they are gone: ay, ages long ago
These lovers fled away into the storm."

It brings a tear to my eye

“All that glisters is not gold;
Often have you heard that told:
Many a man his life has sold
But my outside to behold:
Gilded tombs do worms enfold
Had you been as wise as bold,
Your in limbs, in judgment old,
Your answer had not been in'scroll'd
Fare you well: your suit is cold.' Cold, indeed, and labour lost:
Then, farewell, heat and welcome, frost!”

Shakespeare : The Merchant of Venice.

Madame, I was at a wedding where one of the readings was from Winnie the Pooh

Mine are (may not be exact)

"That time in my life when aunt called to aunt like mastodons across a primeval swamp" Bertie Wooster in one of the Jeeves novels

"I said "Oh". And I meant it to sting" also Bertie Wooster (dh and I use this all the time)

Actually, nearly all of my favourite quotes are from Wodehouse.

And this one from middlemarch

"But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs."

I did get pipped to the post with the Austen quote.

'If you live to be a hundred, I want to live to be a hundred minus one day so I never have to live without you'

On my wedding morning, I received flowers in my hotel room from my husband to be, and he wrote this on the card. I think it's A A Milne.

My gift to him was a sundial, it still sits in our parterre (21 years later) with a quote from Robert Browning inscribed on it - 'Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be'

In the middle of the night we are all poets and babies, struggling with being.

It's from London fields by Martin Amis and I've probably got it slightly wrong but it sums up thatc3am anxiety perfectly.

My favourite Austen quote in terms of one I incorporate into daily life is 'are the shades of Pemberley (or insert location of your choice) to be thus polluted?'

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Dune Frank Herbet

'My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Healthcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.

― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Loving these ladies!
My fave is:

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
creeps in this petty pace from day to day
to the last syllable of recorded time
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out out! brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. Tis a tale
told by an idiot, full of sounds and fury
Signifying nothing.

Machooch. Love love love that play.

Love the Jane A one too :) oooh and the ballet shoes! Of course one would be Pauline.

Oh yes yes to the Go Between, that whole book is so suffused with longing and regrets. Oneinamillion that TS Eliot quote is new to me but utterly lovely, thanks :)

aaargh misquote I am pretty sure it should be full of sound and fury, sorry

Finallyonboard I've just gasped. That was one of the quotes I learnt for my A'level English exam. Gosh that took me back!

This thread is wonderful. :)

I have many favourites, I'll try to contain myself a little but it's impossible for me to pick just the one -

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

"I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am." - The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

"Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armour at home." - Good Morning Midnight, Jean Rhys

"But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest, a little boy and his Bear will always be playing." - The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne (that one always gets me)

And one that will always hold a place in my heart:

"The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well." - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling

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

Adrian Mole

I have loads more but cant think of any as I am still all over the place thanks to Pooh! The one madame posted got me all teary.

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

and

“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in halls of stone,
Nine for Mortal Men, doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.”

Both from The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.