Your favourite quotations?

Your favourite quotations?
« H E » email
posted Monday, 26 November 2007


"Transfigurations never repeat themselves. One need not be frightened of growing old; to the last, there will always be something new." Elizabeth Bowen

"From the cosmic point of view, to have opinions or preferences at all is to be ill." Lawrence Durrell

Both these quotes derive from my own reading and I picked them out from the text, rather than found them as ready-made quotations (from quotation sites etc.)

In fact both quotations are entirely original to Google today through me quoting them on other sites in the last few days!

What are your own favourite quotes?




comments (2)



1. Weirdmonger left...
Tuesday, 27 November 2007 4:28 pm
Below are the quotations I chose to appear in print alongside the stories within various issues of 'Nemonymous':

NEMO ONE

“The oblivion which is my only refuge from the unnamed and the unnameable.” – HP Lovecraft, ‘The Hound’.

“Names should be charms – I used to hope that, by saying some of them often enough, I might evoke reality.” – Patrick White, ‘Voss’.

“Writing will cease to be eventually. The future should found bureaus, where everyone at a certain age submits, anonymously, a truthful biography, it could become material for a real science of man, if such a thing should prove necessary.” – August Strindberg (specially chosen & translated for Nemo by Henrik Johnsson (where are you now, Henrik?)).

“He always has an alibi, and one or two to spare / At whatever time the deed took place – Macavity wasn’t there!” – TS Eliot.

“Whoever I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know…” – Samuel Beckett.

“In an instant I seemed to rise from the ground. But I had no bodily, no visible, audible or palpable presence.” – Edgar Allan Poe (Tale Of The Ragged Mountains).

“Nothing, like something, happens anywhere.” – Philip Larkin.

“'It’s giving girls names like that,' said Buggins, ‘that 9 times out of 10 makes ‘em go wrong. It unsettles ‘em. If ever I was to have a girl, if I ever was to have a dozen girls, I’d call ‘em all Jane.” – HG Wells (Kipps)

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.” – Virginia Woolf (A Room Of One’s Own).

“Nobody ever tells me anything.” – John Galsworthy (The Forsyte Saga).

“Anyone who isn’t confused here doesn’t really understand what’s going on.” – Anonymous.

NEMO TWO

“…then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.” John Keats.

“I’ll be your mirror.” – Lou Reed.

“We burn daylight.” – William Shakespeare.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.” – HP Lovecraft.

“One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.” – Elizabeth Bowen.

“…clothes possess an influence more powerful over many than the worth of character…” – Louisa M Alcott.

“So, to that question: ‘Who has ever fathomed the depths of the abyss?’ two men, among all men, have the right to reply: Captain Nemo and I.” – Jules Verne.

NEMO FOUR

"The nemo is an evolutionary force, as necessary as the ego. The ego is certainty, what I am; the nemo is potentiality, what I am not. But instead of utilizing the nemo as we would utilize any other force, we allow ourselves to be terrified by it, as primitive man was terrified by lightning. We run screaming from this mysterious shape in the middle of our town, even though the real terror is not in itself, but in our terror at it." -- John Fowles 1964 (from 'The Necessity of Nemo' in 'The Aristos')

"Glass Onion." – The Beatles.

NEMO FIVE

“'Secret Way!' said Anne, her eyes shining. ‘Oh, I hope it’s that! Secret Way! How exciting. What sort of secret way would it be, Julian?’ ‘How do I know, Anne, silly?’ said Julian. ‘I don’t even know that the words are meant to mean “Secret Way.” It’s really a guess on my part.’” -- Enid Blyton (Five Go Adventuring Again).

“There was a pleasant anonymity sitting down at a corner table alone in the little restaurant, ordering vitello alla Marsala and half a bottle of Merlot. He took his time, enjoying his food but eating in a kind of haze, a sense of unreality still with him, while the conversation of his nearest neighbours had the same soothing effect as background music.” -- Daphne du Maurier (Don’t Look Now), a quote chosen for Nemo by Margaret B Simon.

“Memo Nemo Omen” – the author of 4’33”



2. Weirdmonger left...
Saturday, 8 December 2007 6:08 pm
The Blond Actress, who felt so little sexual desire, inhabiting her voluptuous body like a child crammed into a mannequin, stared in wonderment at the Preseident ---From 'Blonde' by Joyce Carol Oates