"To all printing plants it gave orders not to publish any appeals or proclamations without the [Military Revolutionary] Committee's authorization."
--John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World
Vive le Galt!
"They obliterated them."
Orson Scott Card and Aaron Johnston, Earth Awakens
"Likewise Kazuo Kiriyama's gang." - Battle Royale by Koushun Takami
" "All stations report, I say again, all stations report." " - The Heart of Matter by Evan Currie
"Alice noticed, with some surprise, that the pebbles were all turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor" - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
" —Meep, beep, squeak!"
-- Ian Doescher, William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back
I wanted to set an example, to be a role model -- but also to come to his rescue, to swim out into the shifting currents of the novel and carry him home.
David L. Ulin, The Lost Art of Reading
"Quite suddenly, Ethan stopped."
Tracy Hickman, Embers of Atlantis
"Second squad, you..."
Tracy Hickman, Speed of Darkness
"Although word of Virginia's ratification had yet to arrive, the state's three delegates all voted 'aye'."
Lawrence Goldstone, The Activist: John Marshall, Marbury v. Madison, and the Myth of Judicial Review
"Surrendering to the demands of politeness, though somewhat reluctantly, she tore her attention away from the ship and its tanks long enough to ask, 'What about you? Have you ever been flying before?'"
Cherie Priest, Dreadnought
"But more and more of late there was talk of independence."
David McCullough, 1776
I actually haven't read any book uo page 55 in quite a long while. [Sheds a tear] Until today!
"And the mighty are great warriors and spend much time preventing anything that troubles their peace of mind."
--Fritz Leiber, "The Curse of Smalls and Stars," in The Knight and Knave of Swords
Which is nowhere near as good as the previous sentence which runs:
"Yes, the seed was well planted, and left to germinate in silence, might have developed as intended, but some gods, and some sorcerers too, cannot resist boasting and gossiping, and so by way of talkative priests and midwives and vagabonds, word of what was intended came to the ears of the mighty, including two who considered themselves well rid of Fafhrd and the Mouser and did not want them back in Lankhmar at all."
Both of which pale, IMHO, to the following, NSFW passage:
Spoilered for sexiness
At the same moment Cif and Afreyt, in the former's sauna, chatted together with even greater but more playful freedom. Afreyt confided with mock grandeur, "I'll have you know that Fafhrd compared my niplets to stars."
Cif chortled midst the steam and answered coarsely with mock pride, "The Mouser likened my a&@~ h$@* to one. And to the stem dimple of a pome. And his own intrusive member to a stiletto! Whate'er ails them doesn't show in bed."
"Or does it?" Afreyt questioned laughingly. "In my case, stars. In yours, fruits and cutlery too."
"Except that he's stronger and quicker and smarter and prettier -- he says he's prettier but that's -- "
Orson Scott Card, Visitors
"Evidently the woman who had given that mirror to the temple must have regretted the giving."
--Lafcadio Hearn, Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things
What demon possessed him npne could say.
George R.R. Martin, Linda Antonsson, and Elio M. Garcia jr - The World of Ice and Fire.
"'Another trifling error of my life has been, that I have always expected to secure the favor of the whites by tamely submitting to every species of indignity, contempt, and wrong, instead of nobly resisting their brutal aggressions from principle, and taking my place as a man, and assuming the responsibilities of a man, a citizen, a husband, a father, a brother, a neighbor, a friend,--as God requires of every one (if his neighbor will allow him to do it); but I find that I get, for all my submission, about the same reward that the Southern slaveocrats render to the dough-faced statesmen of the North, for being bribed and browbeat and fooled and cheated, as Whigs and Democrats love to be, and think themselves highly honored if they may be allowed to lick up the spittle of a Southerner.'"
--John Brown, "Sambo's Lament," quoted in W.E.B. DuBois's John Brown
Now, that's what I call a sentence!
"A funny noise..." he echoed.
--Dan Abnett, The Silent Stars Go By
"Supposedly generous 'gifts' of cloth were made by the Inca to vanquished peoples from the huge supplies kept in state warehouses, but these were, in effect, 'the initial pump-priming step in a dependent relationship, since the 'generosity' of the conqueror obligates one to reciprocate, to deliver on a regular, periodic basis, the results of one's workmanship to the Cuzco warehouses.'"
--Eleanor Burke Leacock, quoting John Murra's "Cloth and Its Function in the Inca State" in her introduction to Friedrich Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
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'Not only are such tactics inflammatory - they are explosive!'
- Merlyn Gundiff's 'The Power of Silent Command'
"Dag stared at it in wonder."
Margaret Weis and Robert Krammes, The Seventh Sigil
"And when they came to the palace of the King, they saw that every tower and battlement, every wall was covered in vines and flowers so that it seemed from a distance to be a castle built entirely of flowers."
Michael Moorcock, The Queen of the Swords
"But you don't seem to have a single one of their words definitely."
--Brian Aldiss, The Dark Light Years
Then when he knew that everyone was at dinner in the long dining-room at the back of the house, he just walked very quietly down the stairs, opened the side door and marched out, down the garden path and out at the tradesmen's gate.
--E. Nesbit, "Accidental Magic" in The Magic World
"Joel had been paying only vague attention to the conversation, but he perked up when they mentioned Rithmatists."
Brandon Sanderson, The Rithmatist
"She did not pull up short this time."
Tadd Williams, Stone of Farewell
"Elan, you're his captive, not his biographer!"
Rich Burlew, Blood Runs in the Family
"Another chorus of cheers."
Tadd Williams, To Green Angel Tower: Siege
Au contraire, ça l'apaise,comme la musique qu'il écoute parfois sur son iPod quand il va se coucher.
S.King - MR Mercedes.
"Some time ago, my dear Bernard, you sent me a little treatise on The Motion of the Eighth Sphere written by Johannes Werner of Nuremberg."
Dava Sobel, A More Perfect Heaven: How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos
"I could here justly tax many other neglects, abuses, errors, defects amongst us, and in other countries, depopulations, riots, drunkenness, &c., and many such, quae nunc in aurem susurrare non libet."
Robert Burton, Elizabethan England's Mr Concise, talking about navigable rivers in The Anatomy of Melancholy
Google says the Latin means "were whispering in the ear, which now do not like to". Make of that what you will.
"...which it is not pleasing to murmur in your ear about now."
Thankyou Coriat! :)
"The perfect answer to a witch cat."
--Fritz Leiber, Ship of Shadows
"I do not actually propose to let s go that far."
--Poul Anderson, No Truce with Kings
A Tor Double Volume!
"Magic is an art which the Ancestral Dragons created for themselves alone," she said, as though that explained everything.
Pierre Pevel, The Cardinal's Blades
If you liked the Three Musketeers, get this book - both Athos and Rochefort have cameos, and one of the titular blades is frequently identified as "the Gascon."
Doodlebug, I really have to wonder... are there any walls in your house, are they all just bookshelves?
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Doodlebug, I really have to wonder... are there any walls in your house, are they all just bookshelves?
Hee hee!
I had been telling my hawt commie NYC schoolteacher girlfriend that she should start filling the available wallspace in her apartment with shelves now. When she came up to visit, she looked at the books in my room and said, "Yeah, I don't think all of these are going to fit." When she asked why I was making such a hangdog face, I replied "I've also got 14 boxes stashed in various attics across New England."
I didn't even bother showing her my record collection.
DA, I worry less about reading becoming an extinct skill with you around! You've never really lived until your friends refuse to help you move because they want to avoid the hernias they'd get from moving all your books!
"At that moment, Harewood desperately wished to be on one of them."
Alan Dean Foster, Star Trek: Into Darkness
Foster has written most of the SF movie novelizations that I can think of; of course, he also has a history with the written Star Trek franchise.
"So Claiborne capitulated." The Half Has Never Been Told by Ed Baptist. Subject of controversy back in September, as the reviewer for The Economist considered it hard on slaveholders. Said review featured a picture of a character from 12 Years a Slave who was brutally raped in the movie and declared her "a valuable commodity".
Baptist's line refers to the controversy over whether New Orleans would accept thousands of French slaveholders and their human property, late of Haiti and then Cuba, into the city. They did so in defiance of several federal laws including the prohibition on the import of slaves from abroad.
"There had been no change in Leleth's condition when Jeremias returned with Binabik and Aditu."
Tadd Williams, To Green Angel Tower: Storm
"You say you are as good as I, so now prove you are My equal."
--Virginia Hamilton, "Spider Ananse Finds Something," from In the Beginning: Creation Stories from Around the World
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Then when he knew that everyone was at dinner in the long dining-room at the back of the house, he just walked very quietly down the stairs, opened the side door and marched out, down the garden path and out at the tradesmen's gate.
--E. Nesbit, "Accidental Magic; or Don't Tell All You Know" in The Magic World
"We know a great deal. Weren't you listening? For a start we know the Pontius is the most precious secret they protect."
-Dan Abnett, Xenos(omnibus)
necaturus enim erat ille in sacrificiis suis animantia et illis honoribus invitaturus mihi suffragatura daemonia videbatur.
Augustinus, Confessiones
She had a smudge of ink on her chin and on the fingers of her right hand, and she wore a name tag that had the store logo at the top and HI, MY NAME IS SHEILA below it.
-Dead Beat, Dresden Files Book 7 by Jim Butcher (e-book)
My paperback copy has this instead:
"Keep it up and I won't need to make Foresics pick your teeth out of that wall behind you."
"Kneeling beside the ruined door, I pressed my hand to the scorched surface."
Queen of Thorns, Dave Gross