Quotes Archive

I had but that moment declared I would not leave the house, and already I was a stranger in the strange land!

— George MacDonald. Lilith

Persons who are obsessed by phantoms are usually exalted by too rigorous celibacy, or weakened by excesses.

— Eliphas Levi. The Key of the Mysteries

'All right,' said Ford, 'just stop panicking!'
'Who said anything about panicking?' snapped Arthur. 'This is still just the culture shock. You wait till I've settled down into the situation and found my bearings. Then I'll start panicking!'

— Douglas Adams. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

There was nothing wrong with being a loser except for the fact that, of course, you weren't the winner. Nanny had always pursued the policy of being a good loser. People liked you when you almost won, and bought you drinks. "She only just lost" was a much better compliment than "she only just won". Runners-up had more fun, she reckoned.

— Terry Pratchett. The Sea and Little Fishes

Cagliostro may have been only a charlatan, but as soon as opinion had made of him "the divine Cagliostro," he was expected to work miracles; and they happened.

— Eliphas Levi. The Key of the Mysteries

“Yes, but—but maybe I’m just tall for my height,” said Carrot desperately. “After all, if you can have short humans, can’t you have tall dwarfs?”

— Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!

“Tut, tut, child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.”

— Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

"Just because anyone can do something doesn't mean everyone should," Mrs. Peters said. "Besides, anyone with an Internet connection feels they have the credentials to critique or belittle anything these days.”

— Chris Colfer. The Enchantress Returns

“Don't you understand?" snarled Rincewind. "We are going over the Edge, godsdammit!"
"Can't we do anything about it?"
"No!"
"Then I can't see the sense in panicking," said Twoflower calmly.

— Terry Pratchett. The Colour of Magic

„Not directly," said the genie, "but there are certain lines of communication among us magic beings. It sent out an SAS."
"You mean SOS," said Katharine.
"I do not," said the genie. "'Send A Sorcerer' is the complete expression. 'Send O Sorcerer' would be nonsense!"

— Edward Eager. Magic by the Lake

“The only way to come to know where you are is to begin to make yourself at home.”
“How am I to begin that where everything is so strange?”
“By doing something.”
“What?”
“Anything; and the sooner you begin the better! for until you are at home, you will find it as difficult to get out as it is to get in.“

— George MacDonald. Lilith

“These days people act like love is an island—they all want to swim to it but no one wants to get wet.”

— Chris Colfer. A Grimm Warning

“I figured something out. You can't hold onto hate forever. It won't do a thing to the person you hate, but it'll poison you, sure enough.”

— Rick Riordan. The Ship of the Dead

„Is being married anything like being a King?" inquired Randy suspiciously.
"Oh, no. No, indeed, quite the reverse." The eyes of the old Duke, who had once been married, grew glazed and pensive. "Once you are married, you will feel less like a King every day," he promised solemnly.

— Ruth Plumly Thompson. The Silver Princess in Oz

Woman is fine for her own satisfaction alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the latter.

— Jane Austen. Northanger Abbey

“I mean,” said Miss Marple, puckering her brow a little as she counted the stitches in her knitting, “that so many people seem to me not to be either bad or good, but simply, you know, very silly.”

— Agatha Christie. The Tuesday Night Club

“Wal,” said the Captain, when his pipe was refilled and drawing bravely. “Let me see now! where shall I begin?”
“At the beginning!” said Star promptly.
“Jes' so!” assented the old man. “Ten years ago this—”
“No! No!!” cried the child. “That isn't the beginning, Daddy! That's almost half-way to the middle. 'When I was a young lad.' That's the beginning.”

— Laura E. Richards. Captain January

"Don't go saying I did it!" said the turtle. "Don't come complaining to me! People who go around making wishes without looking to see what magic beings are listening can just take the consequences!“

— Edward Eager. Magic by the Lake

"You're not allowed to call them dinosaurs anymore." said Yo-less. "It's speciesist. You have to call them pre-petroleum persons."

— Terry Pratchett. Johnny and the Bomb

"Never say 'no' to adventures. Always say 'yes', otherwise you'll lead a very dull life.“

— Ian Fleming. Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, The Magical Car. Adventure Number Two

Tragic heroes always moan when the gods take an interest in them, but it's the people the gods ignore who get the really tough deals.

— Terry Pratchett. Mort

‘Now young people nowadays—they talk very freely about things that weren’t mentioned in my young days, but on the other hand their minds are terribly innocent. They believe in everyone and everything. And if one tries to warn them, ever so gently, they tell one that one has a Victorian mind—and that, they say, is like a sink.’
‘After all,’ said Sir Henry, ‘what is wrong with a sink?’
‘Exactly,’ said Miss Marple eagerly. ‘It’s the most necessary thing in any house; but, of course, not romantic.´

— Agatha Christie. The Thirteen Problems

The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow. That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah’s flood is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

— Herman Melville. Moby-dick

"I can climb down that, all right," he said.
"No you can't," remarked Jim, with a twinkle in his round eyes. "You may GO down, but you can only CLIMB up."
"Well, I'll climb up when I get back, then."

— L.Frank Baum. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

Agnes was the worst prophet that's ever existed. Because she was always right. That's why the book never sold.

— Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. Good Omens

'I'm not going to ride on a magic carpet!' he hissed. 'I'm afraid of grounds!'
'You mean heights,' said Conina. 'And stop being silly.'
'I know what I mean! It's the grounds that kill you!'

— Terry Pratchett. Sourcery

„Why, hello, Dorothy!" said the Scarecrow. "What in the world are you doing up there?"
"Nothing," she called down, "because there's nothing to do. “

— Lyman Frank Baum.Ozma of Oz

“Yes, yes,” assented Mr. Brych. “A man may certainly think that another religion is a bad one, but he oughtn’t to think that the man who follows it is a low, vile, and treacherous fellow. And the same applies to politics and everything.”

— Karel Čapek. The Absolute at Large

"For instance," he went on reprovingly, "if instead of wishing yourself upon my back, you had wished yourself a good horseman, how much wiser that would have been. There's a lot more to riding than getting into the saddle, you know. “

— Ruth Plumly Thompson. The Wishing Horse of Oz

"Let’s jump off!” cried Wag, beginning to hop toward the edge.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said the Land calmly, “because I’d only run after you again. You might as well settle down and grow up with me. I’m not such a bad little Country,” it added quietly, “just a bit rough and uncultivated.“

— Ruth Plumly Thompson. Kabumpo in Oz

When finally he paused to look around him, Button-Bright could see no sign of Pon's house, nor had he the slightest idea in which direction it lay.
"Well, I'm lost again," he remarked to himself. "But never mind; I've been lost lots of times. Someone is sure to find me."

— L.Frank Baum. The Scarecrow of Oz

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

— Lewis Carroll. Alice in Wonderland

ARTIE: You really expect me to believe that...?
VALDA: What exactly were you expecting, Mr. Nielsen? Hooded cloaked figures standing in half-light around a perpetually burning flame?
ARCHER: He's seen too many movies.
ARTIE: I... You know, I just would have thought that... this waitress is a Regent?
VALDA: John Adams was a farmer. Abraham Lincoln was a small-town lawyer. Plato, Socrates were teachers. Jesus was a carpenter. To equate judgment and wisdom with occupation is at best... insulting.

— Warehouse 13: Breakdown

HOMER: What's the problem, boy?
BART: I've been bustin my hump all week for that withered old clam and all I got was 50 cents.
HOMER: Hey, when I was your age 50 cents was a lot of money.
BART: Really?
HOMER: Nah.
BART: Dad, I've done everything I could and I've only got 35 bucks! Ughh! I am through with working, working is for chumps.
HOMER: Son, I'm proud of you. I was twice your age before I figured that out.

— The Simpsons: Three Men and a Comic Book

Language is the source of misunderstandings

— Antoine de Saint Exupéry. The Little Prince

“Where on earth have you been?” asked Anthea. “I’ve looked everywhere for you.”
“Not everywhere,” replied the bird, “because you did not look in the place where I was. “

— E. Nesbit. The Phoenix and the Carpet

'But it is not your own Shire,' said Gildor. 'Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more. The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.'

— J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring

“He thinks,” whispered the Phoenix, “that her troubles have turned her brain. What a pity you know no French!”
“I do know a lot of French,” whispered Robert, indignantly; “but it’s all about the pencil of the gardener’s son and the penknife of the baker’s niece—nothing that anyone ever wants to say.“

— E. Nesbit. The Phoenix and the Carpet

"The thing is," she said, choosing her words carefully, "owls don't really speak, not really. I mean, only in stories, perhaps."
"The thing is," he replied, "only the right sort of people can hear them."

— Karen Foxlee. Ophelia and the Marvelous Boy

“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?“

— Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking-Glass

"It’s like trains,” said Anthea, as they swept over the low-lying coastline and held a steady course above orderly fields and straight roads bordered with poplar trees—“like express trains, only in trains you never can see anything because of grownups wanting the windows shut; and then they breathe on them, and it’s like ground glass, and nobody can see anything, and then they go to sleep.“

— E. Nesbit. The Phoenix and the Carpet

There is no difference between Time and any of the three dimensions of Space except that our consciousness moves along it.

— H.G. Wells. The Time Machine

I wish that the people who sing about the deeds of heroes would think about the people who have to clear up after them.

— Terry Pratchett. The Carpet People

In short, it has been shown that no man can sit down to write without a very profound design. Thus to authors in general much trouble is spared. A novelist, for example, need have no care of his moral. It is there—that is to say, it is somewhere—and the moral and the critics can take care of themselves.

— Edgar Allan Poe. Never Bet the Devil Your Head

'And what would humans be without love?'
' Rare', said Death.

— Terry Pratchett. Sourcery

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

— Terry Pratchett. Diggers

"We are all mermaids!" chimed a laughing chorus, and here and there, all about the boat, appeared pretty faces lying just upon the surface of the water.
"Are you part fishes?" asked Trot, greatly pleased by this wonderful sight.
"No, we are all mermaid," replied the one with the brown hair.

— L. Frank Baum. The Sea Fairies

As the god of poetry, I understood revisions. Facing monsters and imperial mercenaries was much easier.

— Apollo, The Tower of Nero (Rick Riordan's The Trials of Apollo, Book 5)

It was amazing how many friends you could make by being bad at things, provided you were bad enough to be funny.

— Terry Pratchett. Reaper Man.

The Tiger looked at him steadily and then yawned a wide, wide yawn.
"You're a coward," he remarked.
"Well," said the Lion, "it's better to be a coward than to do wrong.“

— L. Frank Baum. Little Wizard Stories of Oz.

SMITH: Tinker, you sold that invincible clockwork man to an evil queen.
TINKER: How do you know Evolda's evil?
SMITH: If her name wasn't a dead giveaway on the invoice under comments, she wrote mwahahaha.

— Lost in Oz

I AM CYNTHIA! YOUR BLOOD SHALL RUN THICK LIKE A SWAMPLAND! ...Ew, no. That's a bit gruesome.
I AM CYNTHIA! I FLOAT LIKE A LEAF AND STING LIKE A NETTLE! ...Eh. Too vegetarian. Although it might lull the foe into a false sense of security...

— Cynthia, Fire Emblem: Awakening

That somebody should die after the continued howling of a dog is not a remarkable phenomenon; the remarkable phenomenon is the number of people who live after listening to many howlings.

— The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs by T. Sharper Knowlson [1910]

”Just my carelessness," said Anko. "I'd been away to foreign parts, seeing how the earth people were getting along. I found the Germans dancing the german and the Dutch making dutch cheese and the Belgians combing their belgian hares and the Turks eating turkey and the Sardinians sardonically pickling sardines. Then I called on the Prince of Whales, and—"
"You mean the Prince of Wales," corrected Trot.“

— L. Frank Baum. The Sea Fairies

„I can’t believe that!” said Alice.
“Can’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

— Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking-Glass

“And you believe that?” said Sacharissa. “Really?”
“Er, no. No. Of course not. Not as such. But... but you can’t treat religion as a sort of buffet, can you? I mean, you can’t say yes please, I’ll have some of the Celestial Paradise and a helping of the Divine Plan but go easy on the kneeling and none of the Prohibition of Images, they give me wind. It’s table d’hote or nothing, otherwise... well, it would be silly.”

— Terry Pratchett. Going Postal

“I’d rather not try, please!” said Alice. “I’m quite content to stay here—only I am so hot and thirsty!”
“I know what you’d like!” the Queen said good-naturedly, taking a little box out of her pocket. “Have a biscuit?“

— Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking-Glass

"I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairytales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!“

— Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

"Unfortunately," observed the Woozy, "none of us has wings. And we're in a magic country without any magic.“

— L. Frank Baum. The Lost Princess of Oz.

BUTTERCUP: "The Fire swamp! We'll never survive!"
WESLEY: "Nonsense. You're only saying that because no one ever has."

— Princess Bride

However, somebody killed something: that’s clear, at any rate—’

— Alice (Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking-Glass)

Things that would have made the fame of a less clever man seemed tricks in his hands. It is a mistake to do things too easily.

— H.G. Wells. The Time Machine

'Cats don't have names,' it said.
'No?' said Coraline.
'No,' said the cat. 'Now you people have names. That's because you don't know who you are. We know who we are, so we don't need names.'

— Neil Gaiman. Coraline

“I should have kept him to the end,” said Mrs. Oliver. “In a book, I mean,” she added apologetically.
“Real life’s a bit different,” said Battle.
“I know,” said Mrs. Oliver. “Badly constructed.“

— Agatha Christie. „Cards on the Table: A Hercule Poirot Mystery.“

”Who cares, anyhow?"
"I do!" cried the young man, interrupting his sobs to roll over, face upward, that he might see who had spoken. "I care, for my heart is broken!"
"Can't you get another one?"

— L.Frank Baum. Scarecrow of Oz

‘Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,’ said Gimli.
‘Maybe,’ said Elrond, ‘but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.’

— J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring

'If I can't be a hero I'll try to behave like one.'

— Edith Nesbit. The Magic City

Once again what everyone calls paranoia I call preparation.

— Reigh, Lost in Oz

"So tell me, are you going to struggle, or will you go peaceably to meet your doom?"

— Lyman Frank Baum.The Lost Princess of Oz

"I‘m a h’exceedingly rich merchant banker of Lithuanian h’extraction, wot’s got a wife, two kids, and an aging old mum to support,” the Toad confessed, tipping his hat over his eyes and sticking his thumbs into his waistcoat.
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Penelope.
“Neither do I,” said Parrot. “A merchant banker, indeed. A Toad like you couldn’t add two and two together.”
“You don’t ‘ave to, if you’re a banker,” the Toad assured him. “ ’Onest, you don’t ‘ave to know mathematics and things. It’s just looking after people’s money for ‘em and telling them they can’t ‘ave it when they want it."

— Gerard Durrell. The Talking Parcel

Don't talk to me about gold plates – if you can see what the plate is made of the portions are too small.

— Nanny Ogg (Terry Pratchett. Nanny Ogg's Cookbook)

As Agatha Swanburne once said, “A conscience is like a treasure map. You must follow it to the very end, if you wish to profit from it!”

— Maryrose Wood. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book VI: The Long-Lost Home

“Last come the Twins, who cannot be described because we should be sure to be describing the wrong one.”

— J.M. Barrie. Peter Pan (Peter and Wendy)

Cast one little spell that freezes the town, and suddenly you're the bad guy.

— Mama P., Just Add Magic

"Listen, my friend. Since the day I met Eve, I have met and known millions and millions of women. Women have sent me millions of men, and I have heard their stories. Millions of women have come to me of their own accord, and I have heard their stories… " he paused a moment, and added, "and I have never believed one of them. I have studied women intensively, I have studied them derisively, and I have studied them seriously. But Tydvil, believe me, I know I am no nearer to an understanding of them than when I began.“

— Erle Cox. The Missing Angel

We dwarves have a saying: “Be bold. But if things look grim, run away and be bold another day instead.”

— Final Fantasy IV.

'I should like to save the Shire, if I could – though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words, and have felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them.'

— J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring

“I will be frank, Lord Ashton. My estate in Plinkst is troubled. My crops do not grow. My serfs are unhappy.”
Beowulf, who had guessed that serfs were something like a cross between a servant and a peasant, asked, “Why are they unhappy?”
“Because they are serfs,” the captain said. “Is that not reason enough?”

— Maryrose Wood. The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book V: The Unmapped Sea

"It seems to me they must be more cowardly than you are if they allow you to scare them so easily."
"They really are," said the Lion, "but that doesn't make me any braver."

— Lyman Frank Baum.The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

What did you expect? "Welcome, sonny?" "Make yourself at home?" "Marry my daughter?" You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons.

— Jim, Blazing Saddles

"But I'm a prisoner. I'm locked in, so that I can't get out," she pleaded.
"That's all right," said the Scarecrow. "You might be worse off, little Dorothy. Just consider the matter. You can't get drowned, or be run over by a Wheeler, or fall out of an apple-tree. Some folks would think they were lucky to be up there."

— L. Frank Baum. Ozma of Oz

Although St. Valentine's Day is only observed in a very few places in the United Kingdom, and tends towards a speedy disappearance, it is a custom which, for this reason, is specially worth notice...

— T. Sharper Knowlson. The Origins of Popular Superstitions and Customs, 1910

Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts.

— Herman Melville. Moby-dick

'I can't help being alarmed,' said Lucy, slipping her free hand into Mr. Noah's, 'but I won't cry or be silly. Oh, I do wish Philip was here.'

'Most unreasonable of girl children,' said Mr. Noah; 'we are in danger and you wish him to be here to share it?'

— Edith Nesbit. The Magic City

The blues isn't about feelin' better. It's about makin' other people feel worse and makin' a few bucks while you're at it.

— Bleeding Gums Murphy, The Simpsons: Moaning Lisa

As these two officials took their places, Dorothy asked:
"Why is the colander the High Priest?"
"He's the holiest thing we have in the kingdom," replied King Kleaver.
"Except me," said a sieve. "I'm the whole thing when it comes to holes."
"What we need," remarked the King, rebukingly, "is a wireless sieve. I must speak to Marconi about it. These old-fashioned sieves talk too much."

— L.Frank Baum. The Emerald City of Oz