Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[kennyc]

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more......”
- Edgar Allen Poe opening of The Raven

Happy Birthday Mr. Poe:
"He originally intended “The Raven,” with its famous refrain of “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore,’” to be a short poem, but he kept adding to it over the course of a decade, finally finishing in late 1844" (from Writer's Almanac)

[kennyc]

and...

"Literature is the most noble of the professions. In fact, it is about the only one fit for a man. For my own part, there is no seducing me from the path."
- Edgar Allen Poe

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by kennyc

"Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore—
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door—
Only this and nothing more......”
- Edgar Allen Poe opening of The Raven

Happy Birthday Mr. Poe:
"He originally intended “The Raven,” with its famous refrain of “Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore,’” to be a short poem, but he kept adding to it over the course of a decade, finally finishing in late 1844" (from Writer's Almanac)

I love that poem and at one time had it committed to memory, as I did with his short story, "The Black Cat."

[covingtoncat73]

“Mrs. Todds my English teacher gives an automatic F if anyone ever writes 'I woke up and it was all a dream' at the end of a story. She says it violates the deal between reader and writer, that it's a cop out, it's the Boy Who Cried Wolf. But every single morning we really do wake up and it really was all a dream.”
― David Mitchell, Slade

[covingtoncat73]

“The wheel of seasons is broken, says the spring pattern this autumn day, and so am I.”
― David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

“Mrs. Todds my English teacher gives an automatic F if anyone ever writes 'I woke up and it was all a dream' at the end of a story. She says it violates the deal between reader and writer, that it's a cop out, it's the Boy Who Cried Wolf. But every single morning we really do wake up and it really was all a dream.”
― David Mitchell, Slade

That annoys me, but even worse for me is when the first person narrator dies at the end.

[WT Sharpe]

Here are three gems from English-born U.S. poet W.H. Auden (1907-1973):

Evil is unspectacular and always human,
And shares our bed and eats at our own table.
— "Herman Melville" (1939).

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
— "September 1, 1939" (1939).

Some books are undeservedly forgotten; none are undeservedly remembered.
— The Dyer’s Hand, and Other Essays, Part I (1962).

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by kennyc

That annoys me, but even worse for me is when the first person narrator dies at the end.

“If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream

[covingtoncat73]

"Grief is an amputation, but hope is incurable hemophilia: you bleed and bleed and bleed. Like Schrödinger’s cat inside a box you can never ever open."
― from "Slade House: A Novel" by David Mitchell

[covingtoncat73]

Since I'm sharing David Mitchell quotes...I've shared this one before, I think, but it is apropos.

"If we believe that humanity may transcend tooth and claw, if we believe divers races & creeds can share this world as peaceably as the orphans share their candlenut tree, if we believe leaders must be just, violence muzzled, power accountable & the riches of the Earth & its Oceans shared equitably, such a world will come to pass."
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

[WT Sharpe]

UV is bad for you, too: it's always best to avoid things that decompose the molecules of your flesh.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958- ), American Astrophysicist. Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

UV is bad for you, too: it's always best to avoid things that decompose the molecules of your flesh.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (1958- ), American Astrophysicist. Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries.

[WT Sharpe]

Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser.
— Arnold “Red" Auerbach (1917- ), U.S. basketball coach. Quoted in the Mansfield (Ohio) News journal, 6 Apr. 1965. (It has been erroneously and frequently attributed to Knute Rockne.)

[BenG]

The passing of an ordinary man is sad. The passing of a great man is tragic, and doubly tragic when the greatness passes before the man does.
— Harpo Marx, Harpo Speaks!

[kennyc]

Ben, I've been looking at your avatar for ages wondering what it meant, finally did some googling.

"And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished, for the small hours were rent with the screams of nightmare."
- H.P. Lovecraft, Nyarlathotep