favorite quotations, from memory

[calimac]

wild_irises and nellorat and sturgeonslawyer did it, so I'm going to do it: "When you see this post, post a couple of quotations from your own favorite writers. These should be people you read over and over again, not people who had one great idea; go ahead and do it from memory, mistakes and all."

One quotation each, from several of my favorite writers. The problem is, since I spend so much of my reading time re-reading, keeping it down to just a few.

"Deserves death? I daresay he does. Many who live deserve death. And some who die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in punishment." - J.R.R. Tolkien

"Love doesn't sit there, like a stone. It has to be made, made new every day, like bread." - Ursula K. Le Guin

"Two friends delight to be joined by a third, and three by a fourth or fifth, if only the newcomer is qualified to be a true friend." - C.S. Lewis

"Frequent separation may have contributed to the stability of the Churchills' marriage; the lengthy correspondence resulting from it is certainly a boon to the biographer." - Roy Jenkins

"Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep. Hotspur: Why, so can I, and so can any man. But will they come when you do call for them?" - William Shakespeare (Hotspur was an SF fan. Nobody else is capable of that level of quibbling)

"It's remarkable that they should insist on criticizing Tolkien not on the basis of literary merit, where their opinions could rest undisputable, but on popular appeal, where they can be shown up as wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt." - Tom Shippey

"The question isn't whether women should be interested in Aristotle. I, as an individual, am interested in Aristotle. And I submit there is nothing in my sex or background which should prevent me from knowing about him." - Dorothy L. Sayers

"I do not aspire to the sort of gentility which consists of tormenting the feelings of a respectable gentleman." - Jane Austen

"From now on, any representative of the FBI who comes to my door is welcome to a cup of coffee and some light talk about the Red (but non-Communist) Sox. But I will no longer discuss anyone in private with a government investigator." - Bernard DeVoto

"All the eager salesmen were looking up at their president, thinking: tell us, you tough, two-fisted, son-of-a-bitch businessman. Tell us about our glorious future. Tell us about the rabbits." - Otto Friedrich (with a silent nod to John Steinbeck)

"He's so mean he can't look in a mirror, for fear he'll annoy himself." - Donald E. Westlake

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel Fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and species, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation." - Douglas Adams

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Isaac Asimov

"I have thought about their perspective, considered their point of view, tried to put myself in their place. I think they are full of sh*t." - Nora Ephron

Comments

Sources of my quotations

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Tolkien: Gandalf to Frodo, about Gollum, in The Lord of the Rings. An argument against capital punishment that we would do well to consider in the primary world.

Le Guin: This quote, which appears in many places attributed to Le Guin without any indication of its source, actually comes from The Lathe of Heaven.

Lewis: The Four Loves, chapter on Friendship.

Jenkins: His biography of Winston Churchill.

Shakespeare: Henry IV. Part 1, I believe.

Shippey: The Road to Middle-earth, though he makes the same point in J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century.

Sayers: From an essay on the education of women, probably in Unpopular Opinions.

Austen: Eliza Bennet to Mr. Collins, in Pride and Prejudice. Best single conversation in all of Austen's work.

DeVoto: A circa 1950 essay titled "Due Notice to the FBI", in his collection The Easy Chair. (The biography of DeVoto was titled, more appropriately, The Uneasy Chair.)

Friedrich: Decline and Fall. Probably the only occasion in history where a man of literary sensibility attended the sales conference of a failing corporation, and then wrote about it. If I have to whack you over the head to inform you that the Steinbeck allusion is to Of Mice and Men, it's gonna hurt.

Westlake: Description of a self-appointed tough guy in Dancing Aztecs. I have never ceased to marvel at how convoluted this sentence is in so few words.

Adams: The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, of course.

Asimov: Motto of one of the lead characters in Foundation.

Ephron: An essay on, of all things, breasts.

[fionagh.livejournal.com]

Wonderful quotes! I'm going to do this!