Games

Posted by Justine | June 13, 2009 | 14 Comments

I’ve been reading up a storm around here. Since it’s a rainy Saturday morning here, let’s play a game. From the books I’ve been reading the last little bit, I went on a bit of an excursion. Which books do the following quotations come from? I’ll post all the answers tonight before I go to bed. Have any of your own you want to add to play along? Go find the books you’re reading and jump in!

1. “Nothing is more deceitful … than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.”

2. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

3. “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”

4. “Rays from the sunrise drew forth the buds and stretched them into long stalks, lifted up sap in noiseless streams, opened petals, and sucked out scents in invisible jets and breathings.”

5. “Scars can come in useful. I have one myself above my left knee which is a perfect map of the London Underground.”

6. “The train was rocking through wide open country before Elsa was able to put off the misery of leaving and reach out for the freedom and release that were hers now.”

7. “I am glad you are no relation of mine. I will never call you aunt as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick.”

8. “She went on olden-day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad. She went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling. Shetravelled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.”

Comments

14 Responses to “Games”

Rebecca
June 13th, 2009 @ 7:24 am

It is fine to want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, doing well is simply not enough.
ginna
June 13th, 2009 @ 7:35 am

5 is from Harry Potter and I think 6 is from Big Rock Candy Mountain. I recognize some of the others but can’t place them! Can’t wait to hear what they’re from.
Maryanne
June 13th, 2009 @ 8:01 am

2 is from A Tale of Two Cities. Some of the others are familiar but I can’t place them.
Dovie
June 13th, 2009 @ 8:03 am

Is 2. Tale of Two Cities? Sydney Carton. One of the my most favorite books ever.
Dovie
June 13th, 2009 @ 8:06 am

I wasn’t clear before the book by Charles Dickens. The quote is by Sydney Carton. One of my favorite fictional tortured souls.
Karla
June 13th, 2009 @ 8:21 am

1. is Pride and Prejudice
Amira
June 13th, 2009 @ 9:08 am

3 is a Russian author, but I can’t quite place it

4 is Thomas Hardy, from Tess, I believe

7 is Jane Eyre

1,2, and 5 are some of my favorites too.
Tay
June 13th, 2009 @ 11:22 am

I love when Jane says that to Mrs Reed. It cracks me up every time to imagine this 10 year old girl yelling at her aunt, and her aunt just looking at her like she’s crazy or possessed. Hahaha…

But you’re reading Thomas Hardy? You must enjoy ripping out your heart and stomping on it. After I read Jude the Obscure, I swore off of his books. Too heartbreaking for me.
jendoop
June 13th, 2009 @ 11:43 am

I am horrid at remembering quotes, probably because I can’t remember names. So I’ll just watch this one from afar.
Nancy R.
June 13th, 2009 @ 12:12 pm

Isn’t #10 from Matilda?
Strollerblader
June 13th, 2009 @ 1:11 pm

#10?? (see above)

Boy, am I illiterate! And any quotes I could post here, would mostly be from non-fiction…
Justine
June 13th, 2009 @ 2:30 pm

You guys are GOOD! I think you’ve gotten them all (except did no one get jane Austen? It’s Darcy speaking to Bingley.)

And indeed, I tend to read heart wrenching literature. I’m actually in the middle of the Dostoevsky book. Nice light summer reading, huh? But that’s why I read Austen last weekend and the Harry Potter series a couple of weeks ago. Gotta have some happiness somewhere!

1. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
2. Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
3. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
4. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
5. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
6. The Big Rock Candy Mountain by Wallace Stegner
7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
8. Matilda by Roald Dahl

And I have no idea on the quote Rebecca! I know I’ve read it, it sounds so familiar, but I can’t pin it down. Tell, tell, tell!
Justine
June 14th, 2009 @ 11:28 am

OK, I don’t know if it’s who you meant, but I found that quote in an Anna Quindlen book. Was she stealing it from someone else?
Cheri
June 14th, 2009 @ 2:55 pm

That was fun, Justine! Thanks.