Quotes from "Far From the Madding Crowd"

The instinctive act of humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges and other shapes to leeward then caught the note, lowering it to the tenderest sob; and how the hurrying gust then plunged into the south, to be heard no more.

The sky was clear -- remarkably clear -- and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.

It is safer to accept any chance that offers itself, and extemporize a procedure to fit it, than to get a good plan matured, and wait for a chance of using it.

It was that period in the vernal quarter when we may suppose the Dryads to be waking for the season. The vegetable world begins to move and swell and the saps to rise, till in the completest silence of lone gardens and trackless plantations, where everything seems helpless and still after the bond and slavery of frost, there are bustlings, strainings, united thrusts, and pulls-all-together, in comparison with which the powerful tugs of cranes and pulleys in a noisy city are but pigmy efforts.

There was a change in Boldwood's exterior from its former impassibleness; and his face showed that he was now living outside his defences for the first time, and with a fearful sense of exposure.

But a resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible.

It appears that ordinary men take wives because possession is not possible without marriage, and that ordinary women accept husbands because marriage is not possible without possession .

Her love was entire as a child's, and though warm as summer it was fresh as spring.

And Troy's deformities lay deep down from a woman's vision, whilst his embellishments were upon the very surface; thus contrasting with homely Oak, whose defects were patent to the blindest, and whose virtues were as metals in a mine.

There are accents in the eye which are not on the tongue, and more tales come from pale lips than can enter an ear. It is both the grandeur and the pain of the remoter moods that they avoid the pathway of sound.

Quotes from "Kidnapped"

Quotes from Kidnapped by R. L. Stevenson

Kidnapped is a historical novel and adventure tale about David Balfour. The novel also relates to the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland. The story was first published in 1886. Henry James, Jorge Luis Borges and Seamus Heaney have all praised the novel. Here are a few quotes from the novel.

· "The sun began to shine upon the summit of the hills as I went down the road; and by the time I had come as far as the manse, the blackbirds were whistling in the garden lilacs, and the mist that hung around the valley in the time of the dawn was beginning to arise and die away." - Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, Ch. 1

· "In those days folk still believed in witches and trembled at a curse; and this one, falling so pat, like a wayside omen, to arrest me ere I carried out my purpose, took the pith out of my legs." - Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, Ch. 2

· "If I had been some years younger, what with shame, weariness, and disappointment, I believe I had burst into tears. As it was, I could find no words, neither black nor white, but handed him the letter, and sat down to the porridge with as little appetite for meat as ever a young man had."- Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, Ch. 3

· "Even I, who had the tide going out and in before me in the bay, and even watched for the ebbs, the better to get my shellfish -- even I (I say) if I had sat down to think, instead of raging at my fate, must have soon guessed the secret, and got free. It was no wonder the fishers had not understood me. The wonder was rather that they had ever guessed my pitiful illusion, and taken the trouble to come back. I had starved with cold and hunger on that island for close upon one hundred hours. But for the fishers, I might have left my bones there, in pure folly. And even as it was, I had paid for it pretty dear, not only in past sufferings, but in my present case; being clothed like a beggar-man, scarce able to walk, and in great pain of my sore throat. I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first." " - Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, Ch. 14

Quotes from Grapes of Wrath

Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck, Nobel-Prize winner for literature. Published in 1939, the novel centers around the Joads, a family of sharecroppers, who journey to California to find a new life--amidst the Dust Bowl devastation of the Great Depression. Here are a few quotes from Grapes of Wrath.

· "Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 1

· "Before I knowed it, I was sayin' out loud, 'The hell with it! There ain't no sin and there ain't no virtue. There's just stuff people do. It's all part of the same thing.'... I says, 'What's this call, this sperit?' An' I says, 'It's love. I love people so much I'm fit to bust, sometimes.'... I figgered, 'Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,' I figgered, 'maybe it's all men an' all women we love; maybe that's the Holy Sperit-the human sperit-the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever'body's a part of.' Now I sat there thinkin' it, an' all of a suddent-I knew it. I knew it so deep down that it was true, and I still know it."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 4

· "They breathe profits; they eat the interest on money. If they don't get it, they die the way you die without air, without side-meat."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5

· "The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It's the monster. Men made it, but they can't control it."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 5

· "It ain't that big. The whole United States ain't that big. It ain't that big. It ain't big enough. There ain't room enough for you an' me, for your kind an' my kind, for rich and poor together all in one country, for thieves and honest men. For hunger and fat."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 12

· "Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14

· "Fear the time when the strikes stop while the great owners live - for every little beaten strike is proof that the step is being taken … fear the time when Manself will not suffer and die for a concept, for this one quality is the foundation of Manself, and this one quality is man, distinctive in the universe."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14

· "Is a tractor bad? Is the power that turns the long furrows wrong? If this tractor were ours, it would be good - not mine, but ours. We could love that tractor then as we have loved this land when it was ours. But this tractor does two things - it turns the land and turns us off the land. There is little difference between this tractor and a tank. The people were driven, intimidated, hurt by both. We must think about this."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 14

· "Okie use' ta mean you was from Oklahoma. Now it means you're a dirty son-of-a-bitch. Okie means you're scum. Don't mean nothing itself, it's the way they say it."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18

· "I know this... a man got to do what he got to do."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18

· "They's a time of change, an' when that comes, dyin' is a piece of all dyin', and bearin' is a piece of all bearin', an' bearin' an' dyin' is two pieces of the same thing. An' then things ain't so lonely anymore. An' then a hurt don't hurt so bad."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18

· "And the great owners, who must lose their land in an upheaval, the great owners with access to history, with eyes to read history and to know the great fact: when property accumulates in too few hands it is taken away. And that companion fact: when a majority of the people are hungry and cold they will take by force what they need. And the little screaming fact that sounds through all history: repression works only to strengthen and knit the repressed."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19

· "How can you frighten a man whose hunger is not only in his own cramped stomach but in the wretched bellies of his children? You can't scare him--he has known a fear beyond every other."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 19

· "The migrant people, scuttling for work, scrabbling to live, looked always for pleasure, dug for pleasure, manufactured pleasure, and they were hungry for amusement."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 23

· "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 25

· "Whenever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Whenever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there... I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'-I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build-why, I'll be there."- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 28

Quote's from George Orwell's 1984

George Orwell's 1984 is a famous dystopian novel. The novel revolves around the experience of Winston Smith. Big Brother is watching; and thoughtcrime is illegal. Here are a few quotes from 1984.

· "Winston had disliked her from the very first moment of seeing her. He knew the reason. It was because of the atmosphere of hockey-fields and cold baths and community hikes and general clean-mindedness which she managed to carry about her. He disliked nearly all woman, and especially the young and pretty ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1

· "The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1

· "People simply disappeared, always during the night. Your name was removed from the registers, every record of everything you had ever done was wiped out, your one-time existence was denied and then forgotten. You were abolished, annihilated: vaporized was the usual word."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1

· "Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms—one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 2

· "Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it... All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 2

· "Thoughtcrime does not entail death: thoughtcrime is death."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 2

· "If the Party could thrust its hand into the past and say this or that even, it never happened—that, surely, was more terrifying than mere torture and death."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

· "And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed—if all records told the same tale—then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

· "Day by day and almost minute by minute the past was brought up to date. In this way every prediction made by the Party could be shown by documentary evidence to have been correct; nor was any item of news, or any expression of opinion, which conflicted with the needs of the moment, ever allowed to remain on record. All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 3

· "Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?... Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?... The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

· "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime..."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 5

· "Your worst enemy, he reflected, was your nervous system. At any moment the tension inside you was liable to translate itself into some visible symptom."- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 6

Quotes from Crime and Punishment

What happens when a poor man has murderous thoughts? But, then, what happens when Raskolnikov feels guilty? Here are a few famous quotes from Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky.

"Why am I going there now? Am I capable of that? Is that serious? It is not serious at all. It's simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 1

"Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! There's nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me?" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 2

"What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 2

"Good God!" he cried, "can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, blood... with the axe... Good God, can it be?" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 5

"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or think, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 13

"Life is real! Haven't I lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The Kingdom of Heaven to her-and now enough, madam, leave me in peace!" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 14

"Actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions-it's like a dream." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 17

"If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be punishment-as well as the prison." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 19

"I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 24

"Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled, and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, 'I am a murderer!' Then God will send you life again. Will you go, will you go?" - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 30

"It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 39

"They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other." - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Epilogue

Quotes from Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a famous work by Joseph Conrad. The author's experiences in Africa gave him plenty of material for this work. Heart of Darkness is the powerful and harrowing tale of a man who gives in to the enticements of power. Here are a few quotes from Heart of Darkness.

"The old river in its broad reach rested unruffled at the decline of day, after ages of good service done to the race that peopled its banks, spread out in the tranquil dignity of a waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire. What greatness had not floated on the ebb of that river into the mystery of an unknown earth!" - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"The dreams of men, the seed of commonwealth, the germs of empires." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"And this also... has been one of the dark places of the earth." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"In some inland post feel the savagery, the utter savagery, had closed round him--all that mysterious life of the wilderness that stirs in the forest, in the jungles, in the hearts of wild men. There's no initiation either into such mysteries. He has to live in the midst of the incomprehensible, which is detestable. And it has a fascination, too, which goes to work upon him. The fascination of the abomination--you know. Imagine the growing regrets, the longing to escape, the powerless disgust, the surrender, the hate." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"Often far away there I thought of these two, guarding the door of Darkness, knitting black wool as for a warm pall, one introducing, introducing continuously to the unknown, the other scrutinizing the cheery and foolish faces with unconcerned old eyes. Ave! Old knitter of black wool. Morituri te salutant. Not many of those she looked at ever saw her again--not half, by a long way." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"Nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of native--he called them enemies!--hidden out of sight somewhere." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"In and out of rivers, streams of death in life, whose banks were rotting into mud, whose waters, thickened with slime, invaded the contorted mangroves, that seemed to writhe at us in the extremity of an impotent despair. Nowhere did we stop long enough to get a particularlised impression, but the general sense of vague and oppressive wonder grew upon me. It was like a weary pilgrimage amongst hints for nightmares." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"When one has got to make correct entries, one comes to hate those savages--hate them to the death." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"I couldn't help asking him once what he meant by coming here at all. 'To make money, of course. What do you think?' he said scornfully." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"Do you see him? Do you see the story? Do you see anything? It seems I am trying to tell you a dream--making a vain attempt, because no relation of a dream can convey the dream-sensation, that commingling of absurdity, surprise, and bewilderment in a tremor of struggling revolt, that notion of being captured by the incredible which is the very essence of dreams." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1

"It was a distinct glimpse: the dugout, four paddling savages, and the lone white man turning his back suddenly on the headquarters, on relief, on thoughts of home--perhaps; setting his face towards the depth of the wilderness, towards his empty and desolate station." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 2

"The reaches opened before us and closed behind, as if the forest had stepped leisurely across the water to bar the way for our return. We penetrated deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 2

"Everything belonged to him--but that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many powers of darkness claimed him for their own. That was the reflection that made you creepy all over. It was impossible--not good for one either--trying to imagine. He had taken a high seat amongst the devils of the land--I mean literally. You can't understand--how could you?" - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!'" - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"I tell you... this man has enlarged my mind." - Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 2