14 June, 2013

Quotable Friday (11)

I love reading quotations. Whether they’re funny, wise or poignant, I love those snapshots into the human mind; I love the beauty of language. There aren’t always easy ways to crowbar great passages from novels or thoughtful quotations into ordinary blog posts, so on Fridays I’m letting them speak for themselves.

When I started doing this series, my dear friend Emma e-mailed a couple of quotations she really loves to me. If you want to do the same, feel free! My contact details are on the About Me page.

One of Emma's favourite quotations I'll leave for another time, but she had one from Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell which I'm considering putting on my "to be read" list. Have you read it? Would you recommend it? The quotation is really quirky and made Emma laugh, which reminded me of a quotation from A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth, just because that, too, made me laugh, despite its short simplicity - I'm sure I've mentioned it before on this blog already. So here are two simple sentences that have brightened our days...

"Being a bit of a layabout, he lay about a bit." - from A Suitable Boy

"The fluffy bunny of incredulity zoomed around the bend so fast that it left the greyhound of language agog in the starting blocks." - from Cloud Atlas

Do you have any favourite lines that have made you laugh?

4 comments:

  1. The Cloud Atlas quote put me in mind of Douglas Adams! It would be interesting to find a quote that you feel sums up the essence of a book.

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    1. I think Cloud Atlas is going to go on my book list. I've heard a lot of good stuff about it.

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  2. I'm dipping in and out of a book on grammar and punctuation I've just found (I know, lead an exciting life) and it occasionally uses humorous quotes to illustrate examples of punctuation. I liked this Homer Simpson one to illustrate the use of ellipses (it helps if you can 'hear' his voice!): "Bart, with $10,000 we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of things like...love!"

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    1. The Simpsons have some of the best lines in art I swear! The writers are really talented. That's a good one. My favourite is when the kids are dressing up as the different countries in the UN and the headteacher is trying to get them to behave:

      "Children! Do you want to be like the real United Nations, or do you want to squabble and waste time?"

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