Favorite Quotes

[WorshipTiria]

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

   ~George Orwell, Animal Farm

[Flib Bigboat]

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved with anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense...
The Dursleys had everything they wanted, but they also had a secret, and their greatest fear was that someone would discover it.
~Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone

[WorshipTiria]

Nathaniel interrupted him. "I hope you're not going to say 'in the shadow of the Gibbet' or 'the Execution Dock' or anything dreary like that."
The figure drew itself up. "Ridiculous. The very idea."
"Good."
"I was going to suggest the old plague pits on Hybernska street."
"No."

[MathLuk]

There was once a dream that was Rome, you could only whisper it. Anything more than a whisper and it would vanish.

-Marcus Aurelius, Gladiator

[Flib Bigboat]

"Robber!" cried Gast. "Do you mean to steal Cornillo from me again?"
"Thief!" cried Goryon. "I took what was mine to begin with!"
"Liar!" roared Gast. "Never was she yours!"
"Insults! Impudence!" roared Goryon, his face purple, his hand snatching for his sword.
~Taran Wanderer

I love how Smoit is just standing there watching them, making a mental note to water down his dungeons so they'll be extra damp and dismal when he throws Lords Gast and Goryon in for fighting over a cow.

[WorshipTiria]

"According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking."

  ~Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

[MathLuk]

"The Imperial majesty should not only be adorned with arms but also be armed with laws, so that there may be good government in times both of war and peace."

-Justinian the Great, The Institutes

[Booklover]

"According to some, heroic deaths are admirable things. I've never been convinced by this argument, mainly because, no matter how cool, stylish, composed, unflappable, manly, or defiant you are, at the end of the day you're also dead. Which is a little too permanent for my liking."

  ~Jonathan Stroud, Ptolemy's Gate

Spoiler

Considering the ending, I find that a little ironic. Probably the intention, as there are a lot of times he says similar things. There are also a few things in the prequel that are just as ironic when considering Ptolemy.

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[Perifaen]

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
~Finish Each Day by Ralph Waldo Emerson

[Ally046]

"Mein kleine schwarze Hund."
                      -Glen Lundgren

[Tinarandel]

"Go into the arts. I'm not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem for a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." ~Kurt Vonnegut.

"To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it." ~Kurt Vonnegut.

[Flib Bigboat]

While he was doing this [making paper birds and hanging them in the shrubbery] he suddenly said, or rather screamed, "Oh!"
And we looked, and it was a creature with great horns and a fur rug- something like a bull, and something like a minotaur- and I don't wonder Denny was frightened.
It was Alice, and it was first class...
Uncle has a tremendous lot of stuffed things. He shot most of them hiumself- but not the fox, of course. [The fox has a duck in its mouth, that was why Oswald had thought of putting it out on the lawn in the first place, it looked awfully life-like.] Then there was a fox-mask, too, and we hung that in a bush so that it looked as if it was peeping out...
Then Dicky had an idea, and though not nearly so much was said about it afterwards, as there were about the stuffed things, I think myself it was just as bad, though it was a good idea, too. He just got the hose, and put the end of it over a branch of the cedar tree... it was to be a waterfall...

~The Wouldbegoods, by E. Nesbit.

[MathLuk]

The stream of Time, irresistible, ever moving, carries off and bears away all things that come to birth and plunges them into utter darkness, both deeds of no account and deeds which are mighty and worthy of commemoration; as the playwright [Sophocles] says, it 'brings to light that which was unseen and shrouds from us that which was manifest.' Nevertheless, the science of History is a great bulwark against this stream of Time; in a way it checks this irresistible flood, it holds in a tight grasp whatever it can seize floating on the surface and will not allow it to slip away into the depths of Oblivion.

- The Alexiad, Anna Komnena

[Flib Bigboat]

"Sonny, don't you tell me what's worth while—true love is the best thing in the world, except for cough drops. Everybody knows that."
~The Princess Bride

Just because it's rather long

He rode in silence for a few minutes, then heard an explosive sneezing sound from beside him as Horace tried, unsuccessfully, to smother his giggling. Will glared at him, then turned suspiciously to Gilan.
The young Ranger was grinning all over his face as he eyed the apprentice. He shook his head in mock sorrow.
"Joking, Will. Joking."
Will realized his leg was being pulled again, and this time with Horace's full knowledge.
"I knew that", he replied huffily. Horace laughed out loud, and this time, Gilan joined in.
~The Burning Bridge, from the Ranger's Apprentice series

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[MathLuk]

Anger is defined by philosophers as a long-standing and sometimes incurable mental ulcer, usually arising from weakness of intellect. In support of this they argue with some plausibility that this tendency occurs more in invalids than in the healthy, more in women than in men, more in the old than the young, more in those in trouble than in the prosperous.

Ammianus Marcellinus