Classic Lit Quotes

This compulsion to an activity without respite, without variety, without result was so cruel that one day, noticing a swelling over his stomach, he felt an actual joy in the idea that he had, perhaps, a tumor that would prove fatal, that he need not concern himself with anything further, since it was this malady that was going to govern his life, to make a plaything of him, until the not-distant end. If indeed, at his period, it often happened that, though without admitting it even to himself, he longed for death, it was in order to escape not so much from the keenness of his sufferings as from the monotony of his struggle. ~ Marcel Proust

The road has been viewed as a male turf. If you think of the classic "Odyssey," of, you know, classical literature or Jack Kerouac or almost any road story, it's really about a man on the road. There's an assumption that the road is too dangerous for women. ~ Gloria Steinem

George walked into the room and looked at each of us in turn, ending with Thierry.
"Hey, boss," he said as he lit a cigarette and exhaled the smoke out slowly, "did Sarah really call you an asshole before"?
"George!" I moaned. "Now? You habe to bring that up now?"
"Is this a bad time?" He didn't wait for an answer, or for the matter, a response to his first question. " I just figured that since I haven't heard any shooting in here, this might be a good time for me to take off. ~ Michelle Rowen

People in brightly lit places can't see into the dark. ~ Marie Rutkoski

Cinema – all art really – has great power. Power to illuminate. Power to transform. For those of us who experience film as literature, classic movies comprised an introductory education in the genre. As kids, many of us went searching through library shelves for obscure source novels after seeing some old movie or other. It was the start of many an adventure. ~ Robert Dunbar

With classic sitcoms like MASH, the characters all drove each other crazy, and that's what you loved to see. ~ David Alan Basche

You lit all these candles ... " She glanced at them, then back at him.
"I wanted it to be special."
"Any time we're naked in a bedroom together is special to me. ~ Laurann Dohner

As bright examples of great qualities are but too uncommon among Christians, so are they singular and solitary with the Indians; though, for the honor of our common nature, neither are incapable of producing them. Let us then hope that this Mohican may not disappoint our wishes, but prove, what his looks assert him to be, a brave and constant friend.
The last of the Mohicans by: James Fenimore Cooper ~ James Fenimore Cooper

When I find myself in a dreaded reading slump, nothing boosts me out of it faster than revisiting an old favorite. Old books, like old friends, are good for the soul. But they're not just comfort reads. No, a good book is exciting to return to, because even though I've been there before, the landscape is always changing. I notice something new each time I read a great book. As Italo Calvino wrote, "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say." Great books keep surprising me with new things. ~ Anne Bogel

I want to be seen as a classic model. ~ Reeva Steenkamp

It's a classic love story. I hit on him at a party, he asked me out, then we fought an epic magical battle between good and evil side by side, and now we need a vacation. ~ Cassandra Clare

Marriage: just say no. ~ Lois Greiman

You bloody silly fool! ~ Prince Philip

At a job interview at a university, three men sitting across from me at a table. On my cv it says that I am currently working on a book about the color blue. I have been saying this for years without writing a word. It is, perhaps, my way of making my life feel "in progress" rather than a sleeve of ash falling off a lit cigarette. ~ Maggie Nelson

Fate is unkind when your dreams only exist within the confines of a classic Disney rhyme. ~ J.D. Tulloch

I love cops. I think you have to walk in their shoes to understand, you know when they use violence, Michael Brown in Ferguson, a classic case. ~ Geraldo Rivera

Something happened when I was in elementary school. A Disney artist named Bruce McIntyre retired, and he had done drawings for 'Pinocchio' and 'Snow White' that was just classic stuff. He moved to the town I grew up in, Carlsbad, and he became a part-time art teacher at our elementary school. ~ Robert Stromberg

And she told me I deserved a merit badge for it ... which was such a particularly funny, particularly uncanny thing for her to have said, because when I was about eight years old and I was a Cub Scout, all the boys in our den were sitting around in the kitchen of our den mother one afternoon, and she lit a cigarette bending over the flame from the front burner of the stove, and she set her hair on fire, and I put it out - I don't remember if I just smothered it with my hands or doused it with some Sprite or what - but she stared at me with this sort of demented look of gratitude on her face (she drank) and she said, 'I'm going to recommend that you get a merit badge for this,' and sure enough I did, I actually got a merit badge for extinguishing the fire in our den mother's hair. ~ Mark Leyner

It's like there are seven candles lit in my stomach. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Seven candles burning and smoking - lit - seven flames of doubt, fear, sorrow, pain, waste, hopelessness, despair. They turn my insides black with soot and ash. There is something at the back of my eyes - a pressure building, building, building - hot like the flames of seven candles, which no amount of breath can extinguish. ~ Nic Sheff

Meridian


First daylight on the bittersweet-hung
sleeping porch at high summer; dew
all over the lawn, sowing diamond-
point-highlighted shadows;
the hired man's shadow revolving
along the walk, a flash of milkpails
passing; no threat in sight, no hint
anywhere in the universe, of that

apathy at the meridian, the noon
of absolute boredom; flies
crooning black lullabies in the kitchen,
milk-soured crocks, cream separator
still unwashed; what is there to life
but chores and more chores, dishwater,
fatigue, unwanted children; nothing
to stir the longueur of afternoon

except possibly thunderheads;
climbing, livid, turreted alabaster
lit up from within by splendor and terror
-- forded lightening's
split-second disaster. ~ Amy Clampitt

Behind the candle, Dax's face turned red and he sputtered as if suppressing a cough. A flash seared my eyes as the wick ignited.
"That's rude." His outraged expression was comical.
"You wanted it lit."
"Yeah, but I didn't want to do it for you!" He glanced around the room as if seeking the patience to deal with an unruly child. "Zaltanas and their weird powers, forcing me to light the candle. Pah! To think I wanted to live vicariously through your adventures. ~ Maria V. Snyder

Gee, Jack," she said, amused. "You sure came around quickly." "I know," he said. "I'm a genius that way." "Mel must have really lit into you," she said. "That always increases my intelligence about tenfold." "I ~ Robyn Carr

I wish there was some method to transform all the agony in my imprudent heart to an energy source. It would have lit up the world till eternity!!! ~ Alcatraz Dey

In the top drawer of my bedside table, there's a small box. It contains everything we need to make our night pleasurable. If you have to, leave everything else behind but bring that box."
She snorted as if in derision - but it was a weak snort. She walked toward the steps again.
"Amy."
She turned back to him. "What?"
"Did you notice I didn't ask for a nightshirt?"
She glanced at his lit in her hand and wondered why he told her that.
Then she knew why.
He had just told her he slept nude.
Every night in the cellar right beneath her bedchamber, his naked body remained at the ready to welcome her. Now that she knew it, she could never escape the image ... or the temptation. ~ Christina Dodd

This case deserves to be a classic. ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

A few weeks later, I'm in a fluorescent-lit classroom in Chelsea awaiting the start of the official Mensa test. I'm sitting next to a guy who's doing a series of elaborate neck stretches, like we're about to engage in a vigorous rugby match. He's neatly laid out four types of gum on his Formica desk: Juicy Fruit, Wrigley Spearmint, Big Red, and Eclipse. I hate this guy. I hope to God he's not a genius. ~ A. J. Jacobs

The candle is not lit
To give light, but to testify to the night. ~ Robert Bly

Art is bad when 'you see the intent and get put off.' (Goethe) In Tolstoy one is unaware of the intent, and sees only the thing itself.
from the book, On Retranslating A Russian Classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy ~ Joel Carmichael

My new shorty got a gymnastic back,
'87 emerald green on a classic Jag.
She had the cleft palate, I ordered chef's salad;
She had the club foot, with that little arm,
I couldn't help but laugh ... she ordered Chicken Parm. ~ Action Bronson

You know, you are a classic example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain. ~ Chris Boucher

In the end, everything happens for a reason. Paths are meant to be crossed for a higher purpose than what we realize at the moment. Life for everyone goes on. This is just a fork in the road that has taken me for a slight detour. Tomorrow I'll pick up a new map and set my sights on a new direction. ~ A.M. Willard

The holiday season is a time for storytelling, and whether you are hearing the story of a candelabra staying lit for more than a week, or a baby born in a barn without proper medical supervision, these stories often feature miracles. Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you'd see, and this holiday story features any number of miracles, depending on your point of view. ~ Lemony Snicket

I am deeply devoted to the 27,000 songs I can take anywhere on my iPod Classic as well as the exquisitely engineered MacBook Air on which I typed this column. ~ Eric Alterman

The living room was still dark, because of the heavy growth of the shrubbery the owner had allowed to mask the windows. I put a lamp on and mooched a cigarette. I lit it. I stared down at him. I rumpled my hair which was already rumpled. I put the old tired grin on my face. ~ Raymond Chandler

Camus believes that in rejecting hope, rather than despair, the individual becomes that much closer to being free. It's in the acceptance of the futility of our actions online, even though they may provide both cause (validation, recognition) and value (enriching life via apps, etc.) there will be no change. Activity will continue. Inevitably, our relevancy or level of activity will falter, and eventually change. Camus uses the inevitability of death as cause and reason to eliminate hope. To eliminate hope lets the individual experience fully, without reservation and restriction, the life at hand. I could say the same about our modern condition. ~ Michael J. Seidlinger

In April, he perched on a witch hazel branch, shivering, one eye closed, waiting for the sun to warm his wings. The night had been particularly cold, the winter long, the fishing scarce.
He'd been alone all the time.
When the sun appeared, the warmth felt good on his wings. he lifted from his perch, wheeled, then cackled over the river, studying the surface for the slightest flash: a trout, a small shad, a frog. He lit on a willow snag downriver and sunned himself, raised his tail, shat, and called again. The days were growing longer now, the alewives ascending the streams. The year before, he'd built his nest near the estuary in a seam of clay, and soon - if she returned - the time would come for a new nest along the bank.
The kingfisher fished all morning. He returned to the willow snag at noon; slept, then woke shortly after, startled by the call. Was it she? They hadn't seen each other since the summer before.
He dropped from the branch, called, winged downriver, his image doubled in the water. He heard the call again, closer now. If she returned, he'd dive into the river, greet her with a fish, fly around her, feed her beak to beak. If she returned, he'd begin to exxcavate a new nest, claw clay out of the earth, arrange the perfect pile of fish bones to lay their eggs upon.
He pumped his wings harder now. He heard the cackle closer, louder more insistent. he recognized her voice. She was hurling her way upriver.
Any moment now: she'd fly int ~ Brad Kessler

Taking a deep breath, he made a second attempt. "It's so hard to let Claire go. Romantics are forever people. ~ Thomas Allen

We could never agree about Boogie and I didn't share Miriam's reverence for professors. In fact, just in case I haven't mentioned it before, the pride of my office wall is my framed high-school graduation certificate, lit from above. Miriam has reproached me for it. "Take it down, darling," she once pleaded. But it still hangs there. ~ Mordecai Richler

This notion that's peddled by the religious right - that they are oppressed is not true. Sometimes it's a cynical ploy to move their agenda ahead. The classic example being that somehow secularists are trying to eliminate Christmas, which strikes me as some kind of manufactured controversy. ~ Barack Obama

This was not an Indiana Jones classic holovid; it was real life. ~ Karen Lord