"Certainly silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way."
--JA's Emma Woodhouse in Emma
"It must often be so, Sam, when things are in danger: some one has to give them up, lose them, so that others may keep them."
--Tolkien's Frodo in The Lord of the Rings
"No living man am I! You look upon a woman."
--Tolkien's Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings
"This was Greek, then, was it, this grand delusion! The charm he had supposed in store for him was really a labour like that of Israel in Egypt . . . There were no brains in his head equal to this business."
--Thomas Hardy's Jude Fawley in Jude the Obscure
"You can't have tomorrow till you've been asleep."
--Dorothy Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey in Murder Must Advertise
"Children go around clenching their fists and staring down at their shoes before they know how to read."
--Viggo Mortensen
"Is not the gleaning of the grapes of Ephraim better than the vintage of Abiezer?"
--Judges 8:2
"While solitude with dreams is glorious, solitude without them has few charms."
--L. M. Montgomery, in Anne of the Island
"Ouk echo andras."
--The Samaritan Woman
"Look now -- in all of history men have been taught that killing of men is an evil thing not to be countenanced . . . And then we take a soldier and put murder in his hands and we say to him, 'Use it well, use it wisely.' We put no checks on him. Go out and kill as many of a certain kind or classification of your brothers as you can."
--John Steinbeck's Cyrus Trask, in East of Eden
"Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure."
--JA's Elizabeth Bennet, in Pride and Prejudice
"Squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret."
--JA's Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice
"In the long run, men hit only what they aim at. Therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim at something high."
--Henry David Thoreau in Walden
"'Gentlemen, is not the king great, and are not men many, and is not wine strong? Who is it, then, that rules them, or has the mastery over them? Is it not women? . . . You must realize that women rule over you!"
--1 Esdras 4:14,22
"lovers alone wear sunlight"
--e.e. cummings
"She was quite ready to be fallen in love with."
--JA in Mansfield Park
"There is no way in which a man can earn a star or deserve a sunset."
--G. K. Chesterton
"Pain---is missed---in Praise."
--Emily Dickinson
"God knows how to love, kiddo. The rest of us are only good actors."
--Vivi Walker in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
"What we have to do is to study the Biblical UFOs."
--Barry Downing, The Bible & Flying Saucers (!!)