Favourite Quote from a novel

I just read some of the Dune series, and Frank Herbert has some good ones, so heres 3, though he has a lot of them.

Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.
-Scytale

A: Why should I answer your questions?
Q; Because I will preserve your words.
A: Ahhh! The ultimate appeal to a historian!
-From the death cell interview with Bronso of IX

I never wanted to be a god. I wanted only to disappear like a jewel of trace dew caught by the morning. I wanted to escape the angels and the damned – alone . . . as though by an oversight.
-Paul Atreides
 
Heh, good one manticore, and nice to see you round these parts again. :)
 
"Trust no one"

This is from Liath from the Crown of Stars series by Kate Elliot. Quite good.
 
"How many times have i told you not to press the red button?!"
Crap, i forgot the book, but i'm not making it up.... oh well
 
"Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the endof our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil."
 
I'll need some help filling-in-the-blanks, but this quote was
burned in the back of my mind since I read it.

I dont know which book, or who said it but ---

GRRM's aSoIaF
Brighter the Flame, the Darker the Shadow

-H
 
Was it in the book? I don't know, but i'll take a chance....

"Toss me, but not a word to the elf!"
 
"Open Sesame" - Can't you tell I have been reading Arabian Knights!!! lol :D
 
Both these quotes come from Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny:

"His followers called him Mahasamatman and said he was a god. He prefered to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam. He never claimed to be a got. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could."

"The four points of the compass be logic, knowledge, wisdom and the unknown. Some do bow in that final direction. Others advance upon it. To bow before the one is to lose sight of the three. I may submit to the unknown, but never to the unknowable. The man who bows in that final direction is either a saint or a fool. I have no use for either."
 
Does Shakespeare count as an SFF author?? He seems to turn up a fair bit here (btw, I am probably descended from the historical MacDuff, who was I think a bastard son of James I, though I might have that wrong...)

If he does count, my favourite is

Poor naked wretches, whosoe'er you are
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How do your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as this? O I have ta'en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp,
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.


From King Lear
 
"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
-- The Hobbit

"...the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise."
-- Return of the King
 
"Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka replied. "
 
has anyone read the opening lines of Magician and flight of the night hawks? The lines made me smile because i read magician such a long time ago.

"Want an orange?" Lol great quote
 
My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao...

The thug did not approve of Master Li. "You Peking weaklings call these midgets men?" he howled. "Back in Soochow we grow men so big that their heads brush the clouds while their feet are planted upon the ground!"

"Indeed? In my humble village," Master Li said sweetly, "we grow men so big that their upper lips lick the stars, while their lower lips nuzzle the earth."

The thug thought about it.

"And where are their bodies?"

"They are like you," said Master Li. "All mouth."

His hand shot out, a blade glinted, blood spurted, and he calmly dropped the thug's earring into his pocket, along with the ear that was attached to it. "My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character," he said with a polite bow. "This is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox, who is about to strike you over the head with a blunt object."

*****

From Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart. This book is so good it makes my teeth crack with envy.
 
"Is she become a rag doll? Are the wolves become children? It seems quite possible, there on the twilight fringes of dying. With some faint spark of herself, the little girl holds on to the idea. Even a rag doll has more life than does a dying child."

Jane Lindskold - Through Wolf's Eyes
 
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