What is your favourite quote from a book (not a movie)?

Question

Mine is 'I think, therefore I am'; Rene Descartes

I've spent a long time looking at the responses, and simply can't pick a best answer out of them. They were all excellent. Thank you everybody.
I will put this one to vote.

Answer 1

I suppose a ride's out of the question!

Sorry not nearly as highbrow as yours.!!

Answer 2

"Even today,I can't see a car run a red light without instantly having an image flash into my head of a man's erect pen!s,penetrating a watermelon" it's the last sentence of the chapter Moving Violations in the book 'Possible Side Effects' by Augusten Burroughs-the entire chapter made me howl with laughter which was hard to do at that time given i was sat on a chemothrapy ward whilst my Mum was having treatment!!! That sentence is very true after reading that chapter!!!

Answer 3

"We think we know what we are doing. We have always thought so. We never seem to acknowledge that we have been wrong in the past, and so might be wrong in the future. Instead, each generation writes off earlier errors as the result of bad thinking by less able minds - and then confidently embarks on fresh errors of its own."
Prey, by Michael Crichton
Slightly deperessing, but true

Answer 4

42

Answer 5

"Much human ingenuity has gone into finding the ultimate Before. The current state of knowledge can be summarized thus:

'In the beginning, there was nothing, which exploded.'" ---Terry Pratchett

"The real question is whether all your ponderings and analyses will convince you that life is worth living. That's what it all comes down to. Everything else is detail." --- Briane Greene

Answer 6

"Alf Tod" said Ukridge "has about as much chance of winning the heavyweight championship, as a one-armed man in a dark room trying to shove a pound of melted butter into a wild-cat's left ear with a red hot needle."

From "Ukridge" by P.G. Wodehouse (1924)

Answer 7

We were just outside Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.......

Fear and loathing in Las Vegas Hunter S Thompson

Answer 8

My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect. We can go wrong in our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says, is always true. The intellect is only a bit and a bridle.

- D.H. Lawrence

Answer 9

'Does bouncing count?' The Belgariad by David Eddings just after Silk pushes the bad guy(omg Ive forgotten his name.) of an extremely high wall and then tells Belgarath that the bad guy is trying to learn to fly and that hes not doing very well at it.
Brilliant series. I highly recommend it!

Answer 10

IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING!!!
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Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given rather thann explore the power they have to change it.
Impossible is not a fact......it's an opinion.
Impossible is not a declaration......it;s a dare.
Impossible is potential.
Impossible is temporary.
IMPOSSIBLE IS NOTHING

I can't remember what thats out of but its inspiring!



OR.......


"Baby, we have no choice of what colour we're born, or who our parents are, or whether we're rich or poor. What we do have, is some choice of what we make of our lives once we're here."

Thats from "Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry" by Mildre D. Taylor
.

Answer 11

"No," said the old man, "that's just perfectly normal paranoia. Everyone in the Universe has that." - Slartibartfast

Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I was trying to think of something more, "you know". But at the end of the day, Douglas says it all.