"There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more..."

The Smiths, Handsome Devil

"A book is a mysterious object, [...] and once it floats out into the world, anything can happen. All kinds of mischief can be caused, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. For better or worse, it's completely out of your control."

Paul Auster, Leviathan

"In their determination to preserve flexibility and serve receptivity, Japanese rooms are like Japanese language, in which subject and predicate often fall at the end of a long string of qualifying phrases. Thus a person, place, or thing and its action can always be changed as the sentence moves along, depending on the listener's reactions. For example, "This hot summer evening, beautiful fireflies are" can be shifted to "This hot summer evening, annoying mosquitoes are", should the speaker detect a swatting, not-in-the-mood-to-appreciate-nature attitude in the listener."

Lydia Minatoya, The Strangeness of Beauty

"I used to tell interviewers that I wrote every day except for Christmas, the Fourth of July, and my birthday. That was a lie. I told them that because if you agree to an interview you have to say something, and it plays better if it's something at least half-clever. Also, I didn't want to sound like a workaholic dweeb (just a workaholic, I guess). The truth is that when I'm writing, I write every day, workaholic dweeb or not. That includes Christmas, the Fourth, and my birthday (at my age you try to ignore your goddam birthday anyway)."

Stephen King, On writing: A Memoir of the Craft

"Insensibly he formed the most delightful habit in the world, the habit of reading: he did not know that thus he was providing himself with a refuge from all the distress of life; he did not know either that he was creating for himself an unreal world which would make the real world of everyday a source of bitter disappointment."

W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage.

"When I start a book I always think I know how things will turn out, but I never actually had one end exactly that way. It isn't even that surprising, once you stop to think about it. Writing a book is a little like firing an ICBM...only it travels over time instead of space. The book-time the characters spend living in the story and the real time the novelist spends writing it all down. Having a novel end exactly the way you thought it would when you started out would be like shooting a Titan missile halfway around the world and having the payload drop through a basketball hoop. It looks good on paper, and there are people who build those things who'd tell you it was easy as pie - and even keep a straight face while they say it - but the odds are always against."

Stephen King, Misery

"She inhales deeply. It is so beautiful; it is so much more than...well, than almost anything, really. In another world, she might have spent her whole life reading. But this is the new world, the rescued world - there's not much room for idleness."

Michael Cunningham, The Hours

""Do you know where the wicked go after death?"
"They go to hell", was my ready and orthodox answer.
"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"
"A pit full of fire."
"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?"
"No, sir."
"What must you do to avoid it?"
I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: "I must keep in good health, and not die.""

Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

"That we were formed, then, say'st thou? and the work
Of secondary hands, by task transferred
From Father to his Son? Strange point and new!
Doctrine which we would know whence learnt; who saw
When this creation was? rememberest thou
Thy making, while the maker gave thee being?
We know no time when we were not as now,
Know none before us, self-begot, self-raised
By our own quickening power when fatal course
Had circled his full orb, the birth mature
Of this our native Heaven, Ethereal Sons."

Milton, Paradise Lost, Book V, Satan's revolt in Heaven.

"Do you prefer reading to cards?" said he; that is rather singular."
"Miss Eliza Bennet," said Miss Bingley, "despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else."
"I deserve neither such praise nor such censure," cried Elizabeth; "I am not a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things."

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice.
 

Sir James had no idea that he should ever like to put down the predominance of this handsome girl, in whose cleverness he delighted. Why not? A man's mind - what there is of it - has always the advantage of being masculine - as the smallest birch-tree is of higher kind than the most soaring palm - and even his ignorance is of a sounder quality.

George Eliot, Middlemarch
 

She entered the story knowing she would emerge from it feeling she had been immersed in the lives of others, in plots that stretched back twenty years, her body full of sentences and moments, as if awaking from sleep with a heaviness caused by unremembered dreams.

Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
 

Insufficient consideration has been given to the new
underground religious war which is modifying the modern world. 
It's an old idea of mine, but I find that whenever I tell people
about it they immediately agree with me.

The fact is that the world is divided between users of the
Macintosh computer and users of MS-DOS compatible computers.  I am
firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS
is Protestant.  Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has
been influenced by the 'ratio studiorum' of the Jesuits.  It is
cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they
must proceed step by step to reach--if not the Kingdom of Heaven--
the moment in which their document is printed.  It is catechistic: 
the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and
sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation.

DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic.  It allows free
interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions,
imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted
the idea that not all can reach salvation.  To make the system
work you need to interpret the program yourself: a long way from
the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the
loneliness of his own inner torment.

You may object that, with the passage to Windows, the DOS
universe has come to resemble more closely the counter-reformist
tolerance of the Macintosh.  It's true: Windows represents an
Anglican-style schism, big ceremonies in the cathedral, but there
is always the possibility of a return to DOS to change things in
accordance with bizarre decisions; when it comes down to it, you
can decide to allow women and gays to be priests if you want to.

[...]

And machine code, which lies beneath both systems (or
environments, if you prefer)? Ah, that is to do with the Old
Testament, and is Talmudic and cabalistic.

English translation of Umberto Eco's column "La bustina di Minerva," in the Italian news weekly "Espresso," September 30, 1994. Also appeared in How to Travel with a Salmon and other Essays.
 

"You're disappointed. I've disappointed you. I'm sorry, darling. I'm utterly useless. Can't cook. Can't sew. Can't play the piano. No talent for sketching. Can't carry a tune."
"You're not auditioning for a role in a Jane Austen novel."

Elizabeth George, Playing for the Ashes, exchange between Thomas Linley and Helen Clyde.
 

"The invention of the word processor has made it easy to change the name of a character at a late stage of composition, just by touching a few keys, but I would have a strong resistance to doing that to any but the most minor character in my fiction. One may hesitate and agonize about the choice of a name, but once made, it becomes inseparable from the character, and to question it seems to throw the whole project en abîme, as the deconstructionists say."

David Lodge, The Art of Fiction
 

This thing all things devours:
Birds, beasts, trees, flowers;
Gnaws iron, bites steel;
Grinds hard stones to meal;
Slays king, ruins town,
And beat high mountain down.

Riddle submitted to Bilbo Baggins by Gollum in J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Answer (double-click after the : to make it appear...) : Time
((

A box without hinges, key or lid,
Yet golden treasure inside is hid.

Riddle submitted to Bilbo Baggins by Gollum in J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Answer (double-click after the : to make it appear...) : egg
 

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with weary feet,
Until it joins some larger way,
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
 

"Why do you like angels so much?" I asked Lavinia
She laughed. "Who couldn't like them? They are God's messengers and they bring love. Whenever I look in their gentle faces they make me feel peaceful and secure."
That, I suspect, is an example of what Daddy calls sentimental thinking. "Where is God, exactly?" I asked, thinking about angels flying between us and Him.
Lavinia looked shocked [...] "Why, up there, of course." She pointed at the sky outside. "Don't you listen at Sunday school?"
"But there are stars and planets up there," I said. "I know - I've seen them through Daddy's telescope."
"You watch out, Maude Coleman," Lavinia said, "or you'll commit blasphemy."

Tracy Chevalier, Falling Angels
 

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone
Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings
 

"[...] I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?"
"I wonder", said Frodo. "But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to."

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. Conversation between Frodo and Sam.
 

"All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more. But I am of the House of Eorl and not a serving-woman. I can ride and wield blade, and I do not fear either pain or death."
"What do you fear, lady?" he asked.
"A cage", she said. "To stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."

Dialog between Eowyn, the Lady of Rohan, and Aragorn, in J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
 

"In the lives of children, pumpkins can turn into coaches, mice and rats into human beings. When we grow up, we learn that it's far more common for human beings to turn into rats."

Gregory Maguire, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
 

Algernon: What you really are is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know.
Jack: What on earth do you mean?
Algernon: You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's tonight, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a week.
Jack: I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere tonight.
Algernon: I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much as not receiving invitations.

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest