Quoting Your Favorite Authors via Their Books

John Guillen43 Comments

ImagePhoto Credit: Grammar Wiki

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that today’s would be related. If you missed it yesterday, you can read it here.

Yesterday’s post focused on the first lines of books. How there may even be greater importance placed upon the first sentence of a work containing well over 100,000 words. That some seem to think that the author can lose a reader within those first few words.

Well, in today’s post we’ll be talking about quotes from your favorite books. I guess they don’t necessarily have to be your favorites, but I don’t know many people quoting books they didn’t much care for.

There are so many writing quotes floating around the internet. So many. And quite a few of them have to do with the fact that reading a book lets the reader into the mind of the author. You’re getting to experience something attributed to a single person, and to some, myself included, that can be a wonderful thing. I mean, let’s think of some of the more popular series today. We’ve all gotten to experience life at Hogwarts with Harry and company. Many of us have gone to the Capitol with Katniss and Peeta. Or Narnia. Or Middle Earth. Imagine if these authors I’m speaking of had never created these wonderful worlds for us readers. We’d have missed out on something very real to us.

So with all that being said, there have got to be many quotes from some of your favorite books that you just can’t seem to forget even if you wanted to. I’m a little hesitant to say that I have many fewer than I would have thought when I decided to write this post. Eh. That’s okay. Here are the ones that I know. The punctuation in the actual quote may differ slightly.

“I volunteer! I volunteer as tribute!” Seriously just got chills typing that out. We all know it’s from The Hunger Games and Katniss.

“I’m not allowed to bet, but if I could, I’d bet on you.” The Hunger Games, Cinna

“May the odds be ever in your favor.” Said by just about everyone in THG

“You’re a wizard, Harry.” Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Hagrid

“Thank you, for your consideration.” The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen

“That’s okay, I think crazy stuff like that about you all the time.” Divided Within, Andrew Banks

“You have the eyes of an angel.” Divided Within, Andrew Banks

“Oh my stars!” Divided Within, Vanessa

“Let me in! Let me in!” Divided Within, Sydney Durham

Unfortunately, that’s all I have. I sat here thinking of every book I’ve read trying to come up with quotes and it just didn’t happen. BUT I know you guys must have some quotes from your favorite books. Please do share!

43 thoughts on “Quoting Your Favorite Authors via Their Books”

  1. I don’t know why but the first thing that came into my head was “hit all the bluejays you want if you can hit ‘em, but remember it is a sin to kill a mockingbird” said by Atticus Finch in To kill a mockingbird.

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  2. Whenever anyone mentions book quotes, the first one to pop into my head is from Barbara Kingsolver’s fantastic The Poisonwood Bible, spoken from one of my favorite literary characters, Adah Price:
    “Sunrise tantalize, evil eyes hypnotize: that is the morning, Congo pink.”
    The whole book is filled with amazing quotes, but that one’s always the first I recall.

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  3. I don’t speak this quote, but I’ll never forget it. Gone with the Wind. I read the book and saw the movie. Rhett Butler spoke his final words to Scarlet O’Hara after she pleaded with him, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” he said.

    Scarlet had undervalued him until the very end of her chances to start over. She tried to persuade him to change his mind about leaving, but he turned her down, which really didn’t seem to bother Scarlet at all. After he left, she said blithely, “Tomorrow’s another day.”

    No doubt, it would have been another trip around the mountain for Rhett, had he yielded to her. This was the end of the book. I hate sad endings, but this one was inevitable. I was a teenager. I managed to hold my emotions together until the end. Bummer. We were at a drive-in theater (I bet you never went to one of them.) with my father and his wife and my sisters and brothers. I was embarrassed. Everyone laughed.

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    • I got that sentence on a t-shirt. I swear to God, I never wear shirts with ‘smart’ writing on it, but I loved this quote so much that I designed my own shirt with it. It’s black, and the quote is on the back, printed in gold letters. So it’s all serious and chique in the front, and nasty when I turn my back on someone – I thought it’s quite clever. 😀

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  4. And as for book quotes: I simply don’t have any. You just pointed out to me that I’ve read so many books in my life but I cannot remember a single sentence.

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  5. Muggle-references from Harry Potter for sure. 🙂 I am better at movie quotes though; I’d have an endless list for that. Perhaps it is hearing it rather than reading it that makes it easier to use in context.

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    • I knew some from the movies but since I haven’t read those books yet and there’s a chance that they might not be exactly as they are in the books I didn’t include them.

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      • Yeah the movies are probably not a reliable source for quoting. They tend to take “creative liberties.” Cuz books aren’t creative enough, ya know? *eye roll*

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      • Haha I know. Books don’t compete with movies. Nope. Lol

        And happy belated birthday! 🙂 I was going to comment on your post but I didn’t. Lol. Your weekend sounded fun.

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      • Haha, make a post on your birthday, and you will get more likes and popularity points than in your whole life!
        Do something awesome for your friends on their birthday and then hopefully they will get the hint and reciprocate. If not, get different friends.

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      • Hahaha I love the “if not, get different friends.”

        And I did! Last year. 😦 I’d have to go back to find it but I think I got like one comment. I was sad. But I had like ten percent of the followers I do now.

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      • Sometimes friends just don’t appreciate what they have till they get cut. The good ones don’t need reminding.
        Haha 1 comment. Sad. You get tons of comments now, so I am sure that this year will be markedly different.

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  6. I’m a big fan of:

    “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
    ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

    “It’s not what the world holds for you. It’s what you bring to it.”
    ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

    “I do know my own mind,’ protested Anne. ‘The trouble is, my mind changes and then I have to get acquainted with it all over again.”
    ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island

    “I’d like to add some beauty to life,” said Anne dreamily. “I don’t exactly want to make people KNOW more… though I know that IS the noblest ambition… but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me… to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn’t been born.”
    ― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams

    “Don’t dare a person who has nothing else left to lose.”
    ― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Kiss an Angel

    “His fists clenched at his sides. ‘Damn it! Where’s your pride?’
    ‘Pride? It’s in my heart, of course.’
    ‘You’re letting me demean you!’
    She smiled. ‘You can’t do that. I can only demean myself.”
    ― Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Kiss an Angel

    “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish.”
    ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

    “Where there’s life there’s hope, and need of vittles.”
    ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

    “The world is full enough of hurts and mischances without wars to multiply them.”
    ― J R R Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

    Sorry I included so many. I have million quotes that I LOVE and there just isn’t space to write them all. These are just some of my faves.

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