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Discussion: Favorite passages from books
Member Since: 3/4/2009
Posts: 5,549
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Favorite passages from books
I know books are not really big on ATRL, but still, some people enjoy reading a good book once in a while on here I believe.
So what are your most favorite passages from your favorite books that struck you and made an impact you...the ones that you will never forget in your life. You don't have to post the whole quote, just post the:
- book
- author
- what that passage was like (short description of the passage)
- how it made you feel/why this passage was influential to you
I have many, but right now I vividly remember being greatly influenced and touched by the final passage in Jack London's Martin Eden, where Martin decides to drown himself in the sea. The description of what he's feeling while drowning are so well described, it will be remembered by me all my life I think.
There are many other brilliant passages from my other fave books, but I'll post them later 
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Banned
Member Since: 8/2/2010
Posts: 7,960
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Quote:
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Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!
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Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
This passage was shortly after Catherine had died. For anyone who hasn't read Wuthering Heights, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have a very passionate albeit unusual relationship. The line "haunt me" is probably one of my favorite quotes of all time from a novel. It's such a cryptic and eerie line - masochistic in nature, yet at the same time, it's very romantic. The idea of love and satisfaction through misery is such a bleak concept, yet Bronte turns it around and makes it desirable to one of her characters. In essence, death is freedom for these two lovers.
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Member Since: 7/21/2007
Posts: 17,522
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Im in the wrong thread.
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Banned
Member Since: 11/24/2009
Posts: 61,404
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I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility. You know, that feeling? And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness. This is where it starts. And of course there will always be more. It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning. It was happiness. It was the moment. Right then.
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This passage is so simple and true. It says so much about how when we're happy, we take it for granted and assume there will be more happiness. Enjoy and appreciate the moment; you might not get another one.
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Member Since: 8/15/2010
Posts: 8,808
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jewfro
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
This passage was shortly after Catherine had died. For anyone who hasn't read Wuthering Heights, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have a very passionate albeit unusual relationship. The line "haunt me" is probably one of my favorite quotes of all time from a novel. It's such a cryptic and eerie line - masochistic in nature, yet at the same time, it's very romantic. The idea of love and satisfaction through misery is such a bleak concept, yet Bronte turns it around and makes it desirable to one of her characters. In essence, death is freedom for these two lovers.
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No not Wuthering Heights, how can you actually like that book?
After studying it for GCSE it is boring and horrible. 
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Member Since: 11/13/2009
Posts: 25,902
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"Harry, don't go picking a row with Malfoy, don't forget, he's a prefect now, he could make life difficult for you..."
"Wow, I wonder what it'd be like to have a difficult life?" said Harry sarcastically.
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Member Since: 7/15/2010
Posts: 3,610
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One of my all-time favorites, from The Perks of Being a Wallflower
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"Sam sat down and started laughing. Patrick started laughing. I started laughing. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite."
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Banned
Member Since: 8/2/2010
Posts: 7,960
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Quote:
Originally posted by Haus of Wilke$
No not Wuthering Heights, how can you actually like that book?
After studying it for GCSE it is boring and horrible. |
I pity you 
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Member Since: 11/5/2009
Posts: 5,253
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jewfro
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
This passage was shortly after Catherine had died. For anyone who hasn't read Wuthering Heights, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff have a very passionate albeit unusual relationship. The line "haunt me" is probably one of my favorite quotes of all time from a novel. It's such a cryptic and eerie line - masochistic in nature, yet at the same time, it's very romantic. The idea of love and satisfaction through misery is such a bleak concept, yet Bronte turns it around and makes it desirable to one of her characters. In essence, death is freedom for these two lovers.
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Liked your summary, thanks for that little lesson 
I had a 'QUOTES' thread similarly that got closed quickly, after no interest in it =/ Hope this survives.
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Member Since: 10/28/2008
Posts: 22,771
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Antoine de Saint Exupéry - The Little Prince
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"If Your Majesty wishes to be promptly obeyed," he said, "he should be able to give me a reasonable order. He should be able, for example, to order me to be gone by the end of one minute. It seems to me that conditions are favorable . . ."
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This is so true! Some bosses are just too impossible with their demands! 
Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead
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"You said something yesterday about a first law. A law demanding that man seek
the best....It was funny....The unrecognized genius--that’s an old story. Have
you ever thought of a much worse one--the genius recognized too well?...That a
great many men are poor fools who can’t see the best--that’s nothing. One can’t
get angry at that. But do you understand about the men who see it and don’t want
it?"
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"When facing society, the man most concerned, the man who is to do the most and contribute the most, has the least say. It's taken for granted that he has no voice and the reasons he could offer are rejected in advance as prejudiced--since no speech is ever considered, but only the speaker. It's so much easier to pass judgment on a man than on an idea. Though how in hell one passes judgment on a man without considering the content of his brain is more than I'll ever understand. However, that's how it's done. You see, reasons require scales to weigh them. And scales are not made of cotton. And cotton is what the human spirit is made of--you know, the stuff that keeps no shape and offers no resistance and can be twisted forward and backward and into a pretzel. You could tell them why they should hire you so very much better than I could. But they won't listen to you and they'll listen to me. Because I'm the middleman. The shortest distance between two points is not a straight line--it's a middleman. And the more middlemen, the shorter. Such is the psychology of a pretzel."
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_________
George Orwell - 1984
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"Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom."
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Mitch Albom - For One More Day
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"I miss them Saturdays, sometimes," Miss Thelma said. "We had some
fun, didn't we? "
"We did at that," my mother said.
"We did at that," Miss Thelma agreed.
She closed her eyes as my mother's hands did their work.
"Chickadoo, your mama is the best partner I ever had. " I wasn't sure
what she meant.
"You worked at the beauty parlor? " I said. My mother grinned.
"Naw, " Miss Thelma said. "I couldn't make nobody look better if I
tried. "
My mother capped the moisturizer bottle and picked up a new jar. She
undid the top, and dabbed a small sponge into its contents.
"What? " I said. "I don't get it. "She held up the sponge like an artist about to put brush to canvas.
"We cleaned houses together, Charley," she said.
Upon seeing the look on my face, she waved her fingers dismissively.
"How do you think I put you kids through college?"
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Not a book but
William Shakespeare - The Merchant of Venice, Act 3, Scene 1
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Originally posted by SHYLOCK
Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions, fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?
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Member Since: 10/28/2008
Posts: 22,771
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ATRL is not yet ready with this kind of thread
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