Favorite Bits from Books (6)

These make me happy.

"as you know, an echo is the shadow of a sound, and sometimes the sound of a shadow."
From The Boy with Two Shadows by Margaret Mahy

"There is a theory that, in the whole world, there are only five hundred real people (the cast, as it were; all the rest of the people in the world, the theory suggests, are extras) and what is more, they all know each other. And it's true, or true as far as it goes. In reality, the world is made of thousands upon thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely tea shop in Vancouver."
From Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

"I will be brave," thought Coraline. "No. I am brave."
From Coraline by Neil Gaiman

"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them."
From Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J, K. Rowling

"Hand attend and listen; for this befell and behappened and became and was, O my Best Beloved.."
From Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling

Favorite Bits from Books (5)

This is absolutely  the best description of a book-lover loaning a book:

After a short silence Strange said, "You advise me to read this book?"

"Yes, indeed, I think you should read it," said Mr Norrell.

Strange waited, but Norrell continued to gaze at the book in his hand as though he were entirely at a loss as to how to proceed. "Then you must give it to me, sir," said Strange gently.

"Yes, indeed," said Mr Norrell.  He approached Strange cautiously and held the book out for several moments, before suddenly tipping it up and off into Strange's hand with an odd gesture, as though it was not a book at all, but a small bird which clung to him and would on no account go to any one else, so that he was obliged to trick it into leaving his hand.

From Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke

Favorite Opening Lines from Stories

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it."

"Mrs. Whitaker found the Holy Grail; it was under a fur coat."

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."

"Once up on a time..."

Clasping of Hands by George Herbert

Clasping of Hands

Lord, thou art mine, and I am thine,
If mine I am: and thine much more,
Then I or ought, or can be mine.
Yet to be thine, doth me restore;
So that again I now am mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since this being mine, brings with it thine,
And thou with me dost thee restore.
If I without thee would be mine,
I neither should be mine nor thine.

Lord, I am thine, and thou art mine:
So mine thou art, that something more
I may presume thee mine, then thine.
For thou didst suffer to restore
Not thee, but me, and to be mine,
And with advantage mine the more,
Since thou in death wast none of thine,
Yet then as mine didst me restore.
O be mine still! still make me thine!
Or rather make no Thine and Mine!

from The Temple by George Herbert

Favorite Bits from Books (4)

"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him."

From The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Favorite Bits from Books (3)

"A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. It may be that our little tragedy has touched the gods, that they admire it from their starry galleries, and that at the end of every human drama man is called again and again before the curtain. Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance."

From Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

I love the thought of God cheering on creation.

Favorite Bits from Books (2)

"We are plain quiet folk and have no use for adventures. Nasty, disturbing uncomfortable hings! Make you late for dinner! I can't think what anybody sees in them."

Also from The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Frequently quoted by family members when adventures loom.

Favorite Bits from Books (1)

"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort."

From The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien (chapter one, page one, paragraph one)