[Khellendros]

Below is the quote which got me hooked on MBotF. Before I read it I thought Gardens of the Moon was simply an alright read, but after it I never looked back. Dunno why, it just stood out for me

Quote

'There are many paths to ascendancy, some more subtle than others.'

It's by High Alchemist Baruk when he's talking to Anomander Rake, and Rake comments on how Baruk speaks to him as if to an equal, which Rake isn't used to. Makes you wonder if Baruk is more than 'just' a High Mage

[Darkwatch]

Quote

"Tell me, who are the Spartans?"

- Cyrus The Great (Herodotus, Historia, I, 153), in response to the Spartan ambassador's threat that if he attacked Ionia Sparta would declare war. I love how it illustrates the Greeks over imbued sense of self that they thought everyone was aware and scared of them, even funnier that they would say this to Cyrus The Great whom they never declared war on and who had Hapargus crush Ionia with efficiency and speed.

[magicrealist]

Spoiler For Return Of The Crimson Guard, Major Spoiler For Return Of The Crimson Guard, This Will Eat Your Soul If You Read It< Don"t Read This Unless You"ve Read Return Of The Crimson Guard!

Spoiler

As for the claw that hunted avowed. Kiska felt a shiver through her. Could it have truely been her? Tayschrenn hadn't seemed suprised-- afterall he'd seen her in action so many years ago. Yet by now everyone seemed to have forgotten or been deliberately led to forget,that long ago when the fighting had been thickest, and Dacner guarded Kellanved, it had been Surly, Mistress of the Claw, who has stalked and slain their enemies

[Mentalist]

^ Now that's just EVIL

(I haven't read it, but it's not nice to taunt those of us who didn't buy the $150 dollar editons)

[Aptorian]

I swear the waiting and the knowledge that other people are reading it is killing me.

I've more than once nearly clicked all the spoiler threads in the RCG forum.

[caladanbrood]

Don't do it Apt! Resist the temptation, it'll ruin the book for you.

[Aptorian]

But it's calling ME!

[caladanbrood]

Oh well in that case

I always avoid forums like the plague until I've read it myself - even the non-spoiler topics. Too risky, and what one person might consider to not be a spoiler, others might. I already caught a tiny glimpse of one on the westeros forum when someone quoted from pat's (theoretically spoiler-free) review, and it seriously pissed me off.


On the topic of epic quotes... a lot of my favourites are from Malazan. Particularly some of the stuff from the Grey Swords. The whole "Now I am Done" scene made my spine tingle.

[councilor]

my name is corfe and i was once a king - three guesses to where that came from

Omnia mutantur, nihil interit (Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost) - the sandman, various references

also, does it have to be a book? i wanna quote games.

[Darkwatch]

This may be clichéd as hell but it was still good:

Quote

Through Me the way to the City of Woe,
Through Me the Way to Eternal Pain,
Through Me the Way among the Lost.

Justice Moved My Maker on High.
Divine Power Made Me,
Wisdom Supreme, and Primal Love.

Before Me Nothing Was but Things Eternal,
And I Endure Eternally.
Abandon All Hope, You who entre Here.

[Raymond Luxury Yacht]

councilor;316041 said:

also, does it have to be a book? i wanna quote games.

This thread is for books, but there's nothing stopping you from making a games quotes thread in the games forum.

[Abyss]

Aptorian;315918 said:

I swear the waiting and the knowledge that other people are reading it is killing me.

I've more than once nearly clicked all the spoiler threads in the RCG forum.

I feel your pain.

We should start an OMG the suspense is killing me thread.

in fact, i'll go do that.
EDIT: wait, i can't, because that means viewing other thread titles in the RCG forum.... oh crap.... THE PAIN!!!!
Further EDIT: Ok, stuck it in the Inn... *sobs*

- Abyss, needs a 12 step program...

[Werthead]

Quote

"Violence is the last resort of the incompetent."
- Frank Herbert, Dune

Quote

"Great empires are not maintained by timidity."
- Tacitus

Quote

"He has gone to bring us back our heart's desire."
She narrowed her eyes. "What is our heart's desire?"
"Vengeance." His voice was soft, as if he were afriad that somone might be listening. "Justice." Prince Doran pressed the onyx dragon into her palm with his swollen, gouty fingers and whispered, "Fire and blood."
- Princess Arianne Martell and Prince Doran Martell, A Feast for Crows

Quote

"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."
- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

This is a brand-new one, from a book as yet unpublished

Quote

"When a man you know to be of sound mind tells you his recently deceased mother has just tried to climb in his bedroom window and eat him, you only have two basic options."
- Richard Morgan, The Steel Remains

Quote

"Know, oh prince, that between the years when the oceans drank Atlantis and the gleaming cities, and the years of the rise of the sons of Aryas, there was an age undreamed of, when shining kings lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars. Hither came Conan, the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with giantic melancholies and gigantic mirths, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandaled feet."
- Robert E. Howard, The Phoenix on the Sword

Quote

"Look," whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven. (There is always a last time for everything.) Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
- Arthur C. Clarke, The Nine Billion Names of God

[Sir Thursday]

If soot stains your cloak, dye it black. This is vengence.

- R. Scott Bakker



Sir Thursday

[paladin]

erikson has some great humor.. like my signature quote

Ublala Pung Grunted a laugh. "They'd never find her if it was a manhunt."

The other two men looked across at him.

The half-blood Tarthenal gestured at the obvious. "Look, she's got breasts and stuff."

...

"A manhunt." Ublala laughed again, then shook his head. "Them Patriotists are idiots."

[Salt-Man Z]

Thread necro!

A great exchange from Heroes Die:

Quote

Majesty: Burn the whole city. That's pretty extreme for the life of one woman.
Caine: Fuck the city. I'd burn the world to save her.

[Salt-Man Z]

Here are some passages from The Book of the New Sun that I took note of when I did my reread in December:

pp.658-9, SFBC edition said:

I resolved to take my own life should the opportunity be afforded me, but it seemed so improbable that I should be given the chance that I was ready to kill myself in my despair.

p.631, SFBC edition said:

If I had seen one miracle fail, I had witnessed another; and even a seemingly purposeless miracle is an inexhaustible source of hope, because it proves to us that since we do not understand everything, our defeats—so much more numerous than our few and empty victories—may be equally specious.

p.473, SFBC edition said:

By lightning, I saw the dead face of the waitress who had served Dr. Talos, Baldanders, and me in the cafe in Nessus. It had been washed clean of beauty. In the final reckoning there is only love, only that divinity. That we are capable only of being what we are remains our unforgivable sin.

p.208, SFBC edition said:

Unless the chiliarch decided, then, to grant clemency, tomorrow I would take Agilus's life. No one can say what that means. The body is a colony of cells (I used to think of our oubliette when Master Palaemon said that). Divided into two major parts, it perishes. But there is no reason to mourn the destruction of a colony of cells: such a colony dies each time a loaf of bread goes into the oven. If a man is no more than such a colony, a man is nothing; but we know instinctively that a man is more. What happens, then, to that part that is more?

p.902, SFBC edition said:

What struck me on the beach—and it struck me indeed, so that I staggered as at a blow—was that if the Eternal Principle had rested in that curved thorn I had carried about my neck across so many leagues, and if it now rested in the new thorn (perhaps the same thorn) I had only now put there, then it might rest in anything, and in fact probably did rest in everything, in every thorn on every bush, in every drop of water in the sea. The thorn was a sacred Claw because all thorns were sacred Claws; the sand in my boots was sacred sand because it came from a beach of sacred sand. The cenobites treasured up the relics of the sannyasins because the sannyasins had approached the Pancreator. But everything had approached and even touched the Pancreator, because everything had dropped from his hand. Everything was a relic. All the world was a relic. I drew off my boots, that had traveled with me so far, and threw them into the waves that I might not walk shod on holy ground.

[LadyMTL]

There are soooo many that I would need a day to list them all but here are a few of my all time favorites:

From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar:

~ Cry, 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war (Act 3, scene 1)

From Shakespeare again, this time Macbeth:

~ Something wicked this way comes. (Act 4, scene 1)
and
~ Out, damned spot! out, I say! (Act 5, scene 1)

On a completely different note, this is one the best parts of Return of the King, IMHO. It's from Chapter 5, The Ride of the Rohirrim, just after Theoden makes his rousing "Ride to Gondor" speech:

With that he seized a great horn from Guthlaf his banner-bearer, and he blew such a blast upon it that it burst asunder. And straightaway all the horns in the host were lifted up in music, and the blowing of the horns of Rohan in that hour was like a storm upon the plain and a thunder in the mountains.

Lastly, from John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things:

In her arms she held a baby boy, barely out of the womb, who clutched at her blouse as she walked, for a lifteime was but a moment in that place, and each man dreams his own heaven.
And in the darkness David closed his eyes, as all that was lost was found again.

This post has been edited by Maia Irraz: 17 February 2010 - 10:04 PM

[Ain't_It_Just_]

Battalion, on 24 May 2008 - 09:55 AM, said:

Gelser always did have a way with words.
This is a bit from DG when he's being told off by the historian.

'Coastal. Remember? We ain' officially in the Seventh and I don't care if you were Kulp's long lost brother, if you're of a mind to use that tone on me, you'd better start telling me about the tragic loss of your uniform and maybe I'll buy the song and start callin' you "sir" or maybe I won't and you'll get your nose busted flat.'

The subsequent passage is equally hilarious.

"The Limper. He's got a hard-on for us."-The Black Company

And the part when One-Eye makes fireflies come out of his mouth, and spell out Goblin is a poof. And then it says, "There is no truth to that canard. Goblin is thoroughly heterosexual."

I laughed my ass off.

[Use Of Weapons]

Most epic quote ever, still staggers me when I remember it (and spoilered for those who haven't read the series and intend to):

Spoiler

'For I was Ilmarinen, maker of mountains, and I am all of him that remains.'

Said by Elof, the Smith from _The Hammer of the Sun_, Book 3 of Michael Scott Rohan's 'Winter of the World' series