Been Quotes (page 180)
Yet it had been delicious to touch her grandfather's robe. It was as different from ordinary material as something sung from something spoken. In a way she liked her grandfather. Once she had seen children crawling under a circus-tent so that they could see the elephant, and she would have done that to see her grandfather; and what she like in him was the upside-downness of him, as this inverted luxury which gave him an everyday possession--for she supposed this robe was just a dressing...
Rebecca West
This book is written in blood.
Is it written entirely in blood?
No, some of it is written in tears.
Are the blood and tears all mine?
Yes, they have been in the past, but the future is a different matter.
As the bear swore in Pogo after having endured a pot shoved on her head, being turned upside down while still in the pot, a discussion about her edibility, the lawnmowering of her behind, and a fistful of ground pepper in the snoot, she then swore a mighty oath on the ashes of her...
Joanna Russ
LADY CROOM: You have been reading too many novels by Mrs Radcliffe, that is my opinion. This is a garden for The Castle of Otranto or The Mysteries of Udolpho --
CHATER: The Castle of Otranto, my lady, is by Horace Walpole.
NOAKES: (Thrilled) Mr Walpole the gardener?!
LADY CROOM: Mr Chater, you are a welcome guest at Sidley Park but while you are one, The Castle of Otranto was written by whomsoever I say it was, otherwise what is the point of being a guest or having one?
Tom Stoppard
Yes, suddenly I saw it clearly: most people deceive themselves with a pair of faiths: they believe in eternal memory (of people, things, deeds, nations) and in redressibility (of deeds, mistakes, sins, wrongs). Both are false faiths. In reality the opposite is true: everything will be forgotten and nothing will be redressed. The task of obtaining redress (by vengeance or by forgiveness) will be taken over by forgetting. No one will redress the wrongs that have been done, but all wrongs will...
Milan Kundera
Had he been informed by an indisputable authority that the end of the world was to be finally accomplished by a catastrophic disturbance of the atmosphere, he would have assimilated the information under the simple idea of dirty weather, and no other, because he had no experience of cataclysms, and belief does not necessarily imply comprehension.
Joseph Conrad
Veronika had noticed that a lot of people she knew would talk about the horros in other people's lives as if they were genuinely concerned to help them, but the truth was that they took pleasure in the suffering of others, because that made them believe they were happy and that life had been generous with them
Paulo Coelho
But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam
J. R. R. Tolkien