I wonder if you would really be interested in reading most of my work. I'm guessing not. I wouldn't be. So I have decided to share with you the product of the bridge between work and play, and that is some of my favorite quotes from books I've read for pleasure. Because half of them are for humor and the other half are for business, and this is supposed to be about work, we will try and stick with the business ones, but you might laugh at some of them anyway. Just don't tell.
"But then there are the other kind, those... who never do good, because they don't know how to and won't listen to any advice... Naughtiness can grow and grow, like a marshweed, until it turns to badness, then if it continues there is only one word for it: evil!" Bella in "Outcast of Redwall"
"You read me like a book. I do have a secret, but trust me, all will be made known to you in the fullness of time." Methuselah in "Redwall"
"Don't be ashamed to weep; 'tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us." Cregga in "Taggerung"
Here I'll cheat a little bit. See, I enjoyed "As You Like It" so much that even though it was for school, I would read it again for pleasure, so I don't mind putting some of its quotes here.
"In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private, it is a very vile life. Now, in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious." Touchstone in "As You Like It"
" 'So so' is good, very good, very excellent good, and yet it is not; it is but so so." Touchstone in "As You Like It"
"Then learn this of me: to have, is to have; for it is a figure in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other; for all your writers do consent that ipse is he: now, you are not ipse, for I am he." Touchstone in "As You Like It"
"Therefore, you clown, abandon,-- which is in the vulgar leave,-- the society,-- which in the boorish is company,-- of this female,-- which in the common is woman; which together is, abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage: I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastidano, or in steel; I will bandy with thee in faction; I will o'errun thee with policy; I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: therefore tremble, and depart." Touchstone in "As You Like It"
"I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier's beard: he sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind that it was: this is called the Retort Courteous. If I sent him word again, 'it was not well cut,' he would send me word he would cut it to please himself. If again, 'it was not well cut,' he disabled my judgement: this is called the Reply Churlish. If again, 'it was not well cut,' he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the Reproof Valient. If again, 'it was not well cut,' he would say, I lied: this is called the Countercheck Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie Direct." Touchstone in "As You Like It"
"I will name you the degrees. The first, the Retort Courteous; the second, the Quip Modest; the third, the Reply Churlish; the fourth, the Reproof Valient; the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome; the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance; the seventh, the Lie Direct. All of these you may avoid but the Lie Direct; and you may avoid that too, with an If. I knew when seven justices could not take up a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an If, as in, 'If you said so, then I said so;' and they shook hands and swore brothers. Your If is the only peace-maker; much virtue in If." Touchstone in "As You Like It"
Now on to the LOTR quotes. LOTR geeks, unite and rejoice. Innocent civilians may leave at any time.
"Tell me what you want done, and I will try it, if I have to walk from here to the East of East and fight the wild Were-worms in the Last Desert." Bilbo in "The Hobbit"
"Now it is a strange thing, but things that are good to have and days that are good to spend are soon told about, and not much to listen to; while things that are uncomfortable, palpitating, and even gruesome, may make a good tale, and take a deal of telling anyway." J.R.R. Tolkien in "The Hobbit"
"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like, and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve." Bilbo in "The Fellowship of the Ring"
"Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can't be right." Bilbo in "The Fellowship of the Ring"
"The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater." Haldir in "The Fellowship of the Ring"
"Yet you speak the truth, that is plain: the Men of the Mark do not lie, and therefore they are not easily deceived." Eomer in "The Two Towers"
"But there, my friends, songs like trees bear fruit only in their own time and their own way: and sometimes they are withered untimely." Treebeard in "The Two Towers"
"For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying." Gandalf in "The Two Towers"
"We boast seldom, and then perform, or die in the attempt." Faramir in "The Two Towers"
"But nay: the praise of the praiseworthy is above all rewards. Yet there was naught in this to praise. I had no lure or desire to do other than I have done." Faramir in "The Two Towers"
"...adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of a sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually -- their paths were led that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those as just went on -- and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end." Sam Gamgee in "The Two Towers"
That concludes this blog post. I just finished The Two Towers and plan to read The Return of the King soon, so stay tuned!
