[Soulessdreamer]

"Soldiers live, and wonder why" - Glen Cook

TTFN

[deth]

And God said "Let there be Light"
AWESOMENESS!!!!!!!
Honestly guys Tolkein, Martin, Feist, Baker, even Erikson have nothing on that book it is SUPER! I could stream a list of quotes that would leave your spines shivering.

[Slow Ben]

Some of my favorites from the Dark Tower.


"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

"First, fight the giant lobsters! Next, ride the psychotic train! And then, after a visit to our snackbar for a popkin or two-" - Eddie Dean

"at least I jack off with my left hand"- Roland

"Oh Christ, I left the world I knew to watch a kid try to put booties on a fucked up weasel. Shoot me Roland, before I breed." -Eddie

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them, he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to, he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this 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 agreed.

And from Butcher:

Paranoid? Probably. But just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face.

Soulessdreamer, on 19 February 2010 - 01:11 AM, said:

"Soldiers live, and wonder why" - Glen Cook

TTFN

I would have added that were it not already here too. Nice pick.

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Quote

Last of all Húrin stood alone. Then he cast aside his shield, and wielded an axe two-handed; and it is sung that the axe smoked in the black blood of the troll-guard of Gothmog until it withered, and each time that he slew Húrin cried 'Aurë entuluva! Day shall come again!' Seventy times he uttered that cry

From the Silmarillion

And from the Gathering Storm, I feel like this is a pretty epic/badass line, but I'll spoiler it in case somebody hasn't read it yet

Spoiler

Cadsuane hissed. "I told you never to use that weave, boy! You will never do so again. Do you hear me! This is not-"
That is the weave we must use when fighting Forsaken, Narishma," al'Thor said, his quiet voice cutting straight through Cadsuane's. "If we kill them with anything else, they can be reborn. It is a dangerous tool, but still just a tool. Like any other."
"It is forbidden," Cadsuane said.
"I have decided that it is not," al'Thor said calmly.


also from later in that scene...
"I have been forced to revis that particular inclination," al'Thor said. "As of tonight."

[TheCrippledThrone]

"There is something profoundly cynical, my friends, in the notion of paradise after death. The lure is evasion. The promise is excusitive. One need not accept responsibility for the world as it is, and by extension, one need do nothing about it. To strive for change, for true goodness in this mortal world, one must acknowledge and accept, within one's own soul that this mortal reality has purpose in itself, that its greatest value is not for us, but for our children and their children. To view life as but a quick passage along a foul, tortured path - made foul and tortured by our own indifference - is to excuse all manner of misery and depravity, and to exact cruel punishment upon the innocent lives to come.
I defy this notion of paradise beyond the gates of bone. If the soul truly survives the passage, then it behooves us - each of us, my friends - to nurture a faith in similitude: what awaits us is a reflection of what we leave behind, and in the squandering of our mortal existence, we surrender the opportunity to learn the ways of goodness. the practice of sympathy, empathy, compassion and healing - all passed by in our rush to arrive at a place of glory and beauty, a place we did not earn, and most certainly do not deserve."
- Steven Erikson


I know we were probably suppose to post quotes outside of The Malazan Empire but this quote had always stuck with me.

[Satan]

"The evolution of our human development may be retarded, but it cannot be stopped" - Alfred Korzybski. What really gets to me is that he's the fellow behind "the map is not the territory" line. How he still manages to cling on to that social darwinistic view is baffling. Props for those who has any idea of what I'm talking about (without looking it up).

[Puck]

LET ME PUT FORWARD ANOTHER SUGGESTION: THAT YOU ARE NOTHING MORE THAN A LUCKY SPECIES OF APE THAT IS TRYING TO UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITIES OF CREATION VIA A LANGUAGE THAT EVOLVED IN ORDER TO TELL ONE ANOTHER WHERE THE RIPE FRUIT WAS?
- Death, but I can't remember from which of Terry Pratchett's books


I studied it all day. What was our mistress like? Would I ever meet her? She intrigued me. That night I wrote an exercise in which I tried to characterize her. It degenerated into a romantic fantasy.
- Croaker in The Black Company by Glen Cook

Every ruler makes enemies. The Lady is no exception. The Sons of the White Rose are everywhere... If one chooses sides on emotion, then the Rebel is the guy to go with. He is fighting for everything men claim to honor: freedom, independence, truth, the right... All the subjective illusions, all the eternal trigger-words. We are minions of the villain of the piece. We confess the illusion and deny the substance.
There are no self-proclaimed villains, only regiments of self-proclaimed saints. Victorious historians rule where good or evil lies.
- Croaker in The Black Company

The dagon eyeballed him. And recalled that they had unfinished business.
- still Croaker telling the story, in The White Rose

I went and wakened Goblin. "We got priest problems. Character named Ghojarindi Ghoj is siccing assassins on me. Take Murgen, go over to Swan's dive, dig out his resident priest hater, have him finger the guy. He needs promotion to a higher plane. It don't have to be spectacular, just unpleasant. Like having him shit himself to death."
- Croaker again, in Shadow Games


And yes, the following is from a book, a song written by one of the protagonists:

Little hero in the night
Little creature full of fright
Fear not the call to trust your heart to battle
Though you think you're far from home
And you're out there all alone
Never let your song sing surrender
Though the dark is deep and long
And you may never see the dawn
Never will your spirit be forgotten

For every little life
Is a candle burning bright
And in the story of ourselves
We all are heroes

Little hero in the night
Little beacon of the light
Stand beside me and unfurl your freedom's banner!
I am just the same as you
Only you to see me through
But together we are all there is that matters
The world is in our lover's arms
We must keep us safe from harm
There is no one else to keep this song a-singing

So let every little life
Stand together in the night
Let us all become our story's little heroes!

- Glorianna O'Toole in Little Heroes by Norman Spinrad


And not sure if this qualifies as epic, but I still like it:

If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.

- Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare, and also where I got my nickname from

This post has been edited by Puck: 25 February 2010 - 02:41 PM

[Abyss]

"Fuck my ass like a chicken pot pie."

Caine, Stover's Caine Black Knife - not only because this comment is stereotypically Caine, but because of what he's describing when he says it. Takes your glorious fantasy tropes and does bad things to them, he does.

From Butcher's Turncoat comes this bit of Dresden awesome... do NOT DO NOT read this if you haven't read TURNCOAT in the series, btw....

Spoiler

SERIOUSLY, LAST SPOILER WARNING...

"And then it hit me. They were dealing with something far more dangerous than me, Harry Dresden, whose battered old Volkswagen was currently in the city impound. They were dealing with the potential demonic dark lord nightmare warlock they'd been busy fearing since i turned sixteen. They were dealing with the wizard who had faced the Heirs of Kemmler riding a zombie dinosaur, and emerged victorious from a fight that had flattened Morgan and Captain Luccio before they had even reached it. They were dealing with the man who had dropped a chellenge to the entire Senior Coincil, and who had then actually showed, apparently willing to fight-on the shores of an entirely too creepy island in the middle of a freshwater sea."

...i suspect anyone who has been with the series to that point had to get a huge kick out of that moment, when Dresden actually realizes how others might see him. And in typical Dresden fashion, he self-depreciates by attributing any of it to the island.

This bit from Morgan's The Steel Remains was brilliant... from Egan about Gil...

Spoiler

"I saw men die that afternoon with a grin on their faces...I saw men laughing as they went down. That was Gil, he made them like that. He was there at the heart of it, screaming abuse and bad jokes at the lizards, painted head-to-toe in their blood. I swear, Archeth, I think he was as happy then as any time I ever saw him, before or since."

On the one hand, i want Morgan to write that story some day. On the other, that one quote makes it more awesome in my headparts than perhapos it could be written.


A recent one, from Brett Weeks' entirely enjoyable Night Angel series' first book....

"He became killing."



- Abyss, end quotes.

[flea]

"Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on."

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

[Salt-Man Z]

From Jim Butcher's Summer Knight:

p. 286, Roc HC said:

Sometimes the most remarkable things seem commonplace. I mean, when you think about it, jet travel is pretty freaking remarkable. You get in a plane, it defies the gravity of an entire planet by exploiting a loophole with air pressure, and it flies across distances that would take months or years to cross by any means of travel that has been significant for more than a century or three. You hurtle above the earth at enough speed to kill you instantly should you bump into something, and you can only breathe because someone built you a really good tin can that has seams tight enough to hold in a decent amount of air. Hundreds of millions of man-hours of work and struggle and research, blood, sweat, tears, and lives have gone into the history of air travel, and it has totally revolutionized the face of our planet and societies.

But get on any flight in the country, and I absolutely promise you that you will find someone who, in the face of all that incredible achievement, will be willing to complain about the drinks.

The drinks, people.

[Slow Ben]

"You dont want to be treated like an asshole, dont act like an asshole."

Cooks Sliver Spike.

[Veilside]

I've met God across his long walnut desk with his diplomas hanging on the wall behind him, and God asks me, "Why?" Why did I cause so much pain? Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness? Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love? I look at God behind his desk, taking notes on a pad, but God's got this all wrong. We are not special. We are not crap or trash, either. We just are. We just are, and what happens just happens. And God says, "No, that's not right." Yeah. Well. Whatever. You can't teach God anything.

Chuck Palahniuk - Fight Club

[Abyss]

"One does one's best." Silk, Eddings' The Belgariad.

Say what you will about Eddings, Silk was his single greatest creation and every time the character used this line, you knew it was true and someone was going to get taken for a lot of money. Or stabbed a lot.

- Abyss, bested.

[acesn8s]

Abyss, on 02 March 2010 - 09:06 PM, said:

"One does one's best." Silk, Eddings' The Belgariad.

Say what you will about Eddings, Silk was his single greatest creation and every time the character used this line, you knew it was true and someone was going to get taken for a lot of money. Or stabbed a lot.

- Abyss, bested.

That took me way back. Here's another.

"He doesn't really have all that much time." Silk glanced out over the edge. From far below - terribly far below - there came a faint, muffled crash; then, after several seconds, another. "Does bouncing count?"

[WhiskeyJackDaniels]

Some good ones from ASoIaF too.

"If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look him into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die."

Bran: "Can a man still be brave when he's afraid?"
Eddard: "That's the only time a man can be brave."

"Now it begins" said Arthur Dayne
"No", Ned said sadly. "Now it ends."

[Soulessdreamer]

Paraphrasing here

"Most people spent there entrie lives trying to prove they were the biggist badass mother fucker on the planet, but Hiro had been freed from that. Because Hiro had met Raven. And Raven had the Bomb."

Snow Crash

[Ain't_It_Just_]

TheCrippledThrone, on 25 February 2010 - 08:24 AM, said:

"There is something profoundly cynical, my friends, in the notion of paradise after death. The lure is evasion. The promise is excusitive. One need not accept responsibility for the world as it is, and by extension, one need do nothing about it. To strive for change, for true goodness in this mortal world, one must acknowledge and accept, within one's own soul that this mortal reality has purpose in itself, that its greatest value is not for us, but for our children and their children. To view life as but a quick passage along a foul, tortured path - made foul and tortured by our own indifference - is to excuse all manner of misery and depravity, and to exact cruel punishment upon the innocent lives to come.
I defy this notion of paradise beyond the gates of bone. If the soul truly survives the passage, then it behooves us - each of us, my friends - to nurture a faith in similitude: what awaits us is a reflection of what we leave behind, and in the squandering of our mortal existence, we surrender the opportunity to learn the ways of goodness. the practice of sympathy, empathy, compassion and healing - all passed by in our rush to arrive at a place of glory and beauty, a place we did not earn, and most certainly do not deserve."
- Steven Erikson


I know we were probably suppose to post quotes outside of The Malazan Empire but this quote had always stuck with me.

Same here. It's a very good philosophy of life after death.

[Slick Mongoose]

"I shall tear these stars from out the heavens, and hurl them in the faces of the gods, if this be necessary. I shall blaspheme in every Temple throughout the land. I shall take lives as a fisherman takes fish, by the net, if this be necessary. I shall mount me again up to the Celestial City, though every step be a flame or a naked sword and the way be guarded by tigers. One day will the gods look down from Heaven and see me upon the stair, bringing them the gift they fear most. That day will the new Yuga begin.

But first I must meditate for a time."

Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. A great book for epic quotes.

[Nuto]

"In my room she's into it and we're fucking wildly and when she starts to come I begin to lick and chew at the skin on her neck, panting, slavering, finding the jugular vein with my tongue, and I start bleeding her and she's laughing and moaning and coming even harder and blood is spurting into my mouth, splashing onto the roof, and then something weird starts to happen and I get really tired and nauseous and I have to roll of her and that's when I realize that this girl is not drunk but that she's on some, as she puts it now, "way-out fucking drugs." "

Bret Easton Ellis - The Informers

After reading that was the first and only time I fainted after reading something in a book, although the suicide scene in his "Rules of Attraction" is also quite unsetteling.