Author Topic: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies  (Read 66053 times)

Offline Sason

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #90 on: January 20, 2010, 05:14:34 pm »
Thanks for the warning, Sason. I might borrow it from the local library, instead of buying a copy.  :-\

That would be a wise thing to do, imo. Should you like it, you can always buy it after reading it.

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre

Offline Kerry

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #91 on: February 04, 2010, 09:50:34 am »

"It was getting towards the end of winter, which meant that the temperature of the air was just right, and the sky was bright, pale blue, and cloudless. There was a slight smell of wood-smoke in the air, a smell that tugged at her heart because it reminded her of mornings around the fire in Mochudi. She would go back there, she thought, when she had worked long enough to retire. She would buy a house, or build one perhaps, and ask some of her cousins to live with her, They would grow melons on the lands and might even buy a small shop in the village; and every morning she would sit in front of her house and sniff at the wood-smoke and look forward to spending the day talking with her friends. How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn't do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass? None, in her view; none at all, and yet they did not know it. Every so often you met a white person who understood, who realised how things really were; but these people were few and far between and the other white people  treated them with suspicion."

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Alexander McCall Smith
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #92 on: February 04, 2010, 12:05:31 pm »
"It was getting towards the end of winter, which meant that the temperature of the air was just right, and the sky was bright, pale blue, and cloudless. There was a slight smell of wood-smoke in the air, a smell that tugged at her heart because it reminded her of mornings around the fire in Mochudi. She would go back there, she thought, when she had worked long enough to retire. She would buy a house, or build one perhaps, and ask some of her cousins to live with her, They would grow melons on the lands and might even buy a small shop in the village; and every morning she would sit in front of her house and sniff at the wood-smoke and look forward to spending the day talking with her friends. How sorry she felt for white people, who couldn't do any of this, and who were always dashing around and worrying themselves over things that were going to happen anyway. What use was it having all that money if you could never sit still or just watch your cattle eating grass? None, in her view; none at all, and yet they did not know it. Every so often you met a white person who understood, who realised how things really were; but these people were few and far between and the other white people  treated them with suspicion."

The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency

Alexander McCall Smith

Some Africans have such a separate idea of time.  Yes, many 'white' people consider 'watching the grass grow' or in this case, 'watching cows eat the grass' an activity they want to avoid.

Offline Kerry

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #93 on: May 17, 2010, 01:57:54 am »
'Come again, Sir. I don't get you.'

'I said Death. I said, do you think about Death a lot?'

'Why, no. Hardly at all. Why?'

'The Future - that's where Death is.'

'Oh - yeah. Yeah - maybe you've got a point there.' 

A Single Man

Christopher Isherwood
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Offline Kerry

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #94 on: June 16, 2010, 02:27:46 am »
"Several quiet days ensued, in which, once again, they were without clients, and could bring the administrative affairs of the agency up to date. Mma Ramotswe wrote letters to old friends and prepared accounts for the impending end of the financial year. She had not made a lot of money, but she had not made a loss, and she had been happy and entertained. That counted for infinitely more than a vigorously healthy balance sheet. In fact, she thought, annual accounts should include an item specifically headed Happiness, alongside expenses and receipts and the like. That figure in her accounts would be a very large one, she thought."

Tears of the Giraffe

Alexander McCall Smith
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #95 on: August 26, 2010, 10:07:48 pm »
"Rabbits (says Mr. Lockley) are like human beings in many ways. One of these is certainly their staunch ability to withstand disaster and to let the stream of their life carry them along, past reaches of terror and loss. They have a certain quality which it would not be accurate to describe as callousness or indifference. It is, rather, a blessedly circumscribed imagination and an intuitive feeling that Life is Now. A foraging wild creature, intent above all on survival, is as strong as the grass."

Richard Adams, Watership Down

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Kerry

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #96 on: December 08, 2010, 12:27:29 am »

"I clearly see that my life was only an imprudent dash between the cradle and the tomb across open country and under fire."

The Naked Civil Servant

Quentin Crisp
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Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #97 on: December 30, 2010, 10:12:42 pm »
"'This statue commemorates the loyalty of a dog who sat by his master's grave in the Greyfriars Kirkyard for fourteen years. He never left his post.' .... such loyalty did exist, and not just amongst dogs. People stuck by each other for years and years, in the face of all the odds, and it should be relief, not disbelief, that one felt on witnessing it."

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, Alexander McCall Smith
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Offline delalluvia

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #98 on: January 04, 2011, 08:47:45 pm »
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.  Specialization is for insects.

and

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.  Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.

- Robert A. Heinlein, The Books of Lazarus Long and If this goes on

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Favorite Lines from Books and Movies
« Reply #99 on: February 20, 2011, 06:18:21 pm »
All falcons are hawks, but not all hawks are falcons.

C. J. Box, Winterkill

"chewing gum and duct tape"