Novelist

Explore 912 quotes by Novelists

I will honor Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.

Charles Dickens

A Christmas Carol

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Topic

Christmas

Author

Charles Dickens

Source

A Christmas Carol

Medium

Novella

Language

English

Time

1843 1840s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Dickens, Charles. A Christmas Carol. London: Chapman & Hall, 1843, stave 4.

Current Citation

Dickens, Charles. "A Christmas Carol." A Christmas Carol and Other Writings, edited by Michael Slater. Penguin, 2003, stave 4.

Great blunders are often made, like large ropes, of a multitude of fibers.

Victor Hugo

Les Miserables

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Topic

Mistakes

Author

Victor Hugo

Source

Les Miserables

Medium

Novel

Language

French

Time

1862 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables. Vol. 2, Bruxelles: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Cie, 1862, bk. 5, ch. 10.

Current Citation

Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables. Wordsworth Editions, 1994, pt. 2, bk. 5, ch. 10.

I do things like get in a taxi and say, "The library, and step on it."

David Foster Wallace

Infinite Jest

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Topic

Libraries

Speaker

Hal Incandenza

Author

David Foster Wallace

Source

Infinite Jest

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1996 1990s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Wallace, David Foster. Infinite Jest. Little, Brown and Company, 1996.

When the peremptory challenges were all exhausted, a jury of twelve men was impaneled—a jury who swore they had neither heard, read, talked about nor expressed an opinion concerning a murder which the very cattle in the corrals, the Indians in the sage-brush and the stones in the streets were cognizant of!

Mark Twain

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Topic

Jury system

Author

Mark Twain

Genre

Travel literature

Language

English

Time

1872 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Twain, Mark. Roughing It. Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1872, ch. 48.

Current Citation

Twain, Mark. Roughing It. Signet, 2008, ch. 48.

I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

Ayn Rand

Atlas Shrugged

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Topic

Individualism

Author

Ayn Rand

Source

Atlas Shrugged

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1957 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Rand, Ayn. Atlas Shrugged. Random House, 1957, pt. 3, ch. 1.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

Mark Twain

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

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Topic

Learning from experience Learning

Author

Mark Twain

Source

Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World

Genre

Travel writing

Language

English

Time

1897 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Twain, Mark. Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World. Hartford: American Publishing Company, 1897, ch. 11.

Current Citation

Twain, Mark. "Following the Equator." Mark Twain: A Tramp Abroad, Following the Equator, Other Travels, edited by Roy Blount Jr. Library of America, 2010, ch. 11.

Anyone's death always releases something like an aura of stupefaction, so difficult is it to grasp this irruption of nothingness and to believe that it has actually taken place.

Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary

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Topic

Death

Author

Gustave Flaubert

Source

Madame Bovary

Medium

Novel

Language

French

Time

1857 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary: Moeurs de Province [Madame Bovary: Provincial Manners]. Revue de Paris, 1 Oct. 1856 - 15 Dec. 1856. Serial.

Current Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Madame Bovary, edited and translated by Lydia Davis. Penguin Classics, 2011, pt. 3, ch. 9.

Axiom: hatred of the bourgeois is the beginning of wisdom.

Gustave Flaubert

Letters of Gustave Flaubert

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Topic

Bourgeoisie Class warfare

Author

Gustave Flaubert

Source

Letters of Gustave Flaubert

Medium

Letter

Language

French

Time

1867 1860s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Letter to George Sand. 17 May 1867.

Current Citation

Flaubert, Gustave. Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence, translated by Francis Steegmuller. Knopf, 1993, no. 77.

Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.

Herman Melville

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

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Topic

Revenge

Author

Herman Melville

Source

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1851 1850s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale. London: Richard Bentley/New York: Harper & Brothers, 1851, ch. 135.

Current Citation

Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick or, The Whale. Penguin Classics, 2002, ch. 135.

I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day.

Quoted in Gone with the Wind

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Topic

Winning someone back

Actor

No

Author

Margaret Mitchell

Source

Gone with the Wind

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1936 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. Macmillan Publishers, 1936, pt. 5, ch. 63.

Current Citation

Mitchell, Margaret. Gone with the Wind. Scribner, 2007, pt. 5, ch. 63.

Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the lash. That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with the cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.

Mark Twain

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Topic

Cats

Author

Mark Twain

Source

Journals of Mark Twain

Medium

Personal journal

Language

English

Time

1894 1890s 19th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Twain, Mark. Mark Twain's Notebook, edited by Albert Bigelow Paine. The Mark Twain Company, 1932, ch. 21. Originally from Notebook, 2 Feb. 1894.

All good books are alike in that they are truer than if they had really happened and after you are finished reading one you will feel that all that happened to you and afterwards it all belongs to you; the good and the bad, the ecstasy, the remorse and sorrow, the people and the places and how the weather was.

Ernest Hemingway

Esquire

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Topic

Power of literature

Author

Ernest Hemingway

Source

Old Newsman Writes: A Letter from Cuba Esquire

Medium

Letter Magazine

Language

English

Time

1934 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Hemingway, Ernest. "Old Newsman Writes: A Letter from Cuba." Esquire Magazine, 1 Dec. 1934.

Current Citation

Hemingway, Ernest. "Old Newsman Writes: A Letter from Cuba." By-line Ernest Hemingway, edited by William White. Scribner, 2003.

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

D.H. Lawrence

Last Poems

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Topic

Autumn

Author

D.H. Lawrence

Source

The Ship of Death Last Poems

Medium

Poem

Language

English

Time

1930 1930s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Lawrence, D.H. "The Ship of Death." Last Poems, edited by Richard Aldington and Giuseppe Orioli. The Viking Press, 1932, stanza 1.

Dear Mrs., Mr., Miss, or Mr. And Mrs. Daneeka: Words cannot express the deep personal grief I experienced when your husband, son, father, or brother was killed, wounded, or reported missing in action.

Joseph Heller

Catch-22

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Topic

War Bureaucracy

Author

Joseph Heller

Source

Catch-22

Medium

Novel

Language

English

Time

1961 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22. Simon & Schuster, 1961, ch. 31.

Treading the soil of the moon, palpating its pebbles, tasting the panic and splendor of the event, feeling in the pit of one's stomach the separation from terre... These form the most romantic sensation an explorer has ever known... This is the only thing I can say about the matter. The utilitarian results do not interest me.

Vladimir Nabokov

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Topic

The moon

Author

Vladimir Nabokov

Language

English

Time

1969 1960s 20th century

Authentication Score 1

Citation

Nabokov, Vladimir. Quoted in The New York Times. 21 July 1969.

I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.

William Faulkner

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Topic

Human nature

Speaker

William Faulkner

Medium

Nobel Prize Lecture Speech

Language

English

Time

1950 1950s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Citation

Faulkner, William. Speech at the Nobel Banquet. Nobel Banquet. 10 Dec. 1950, City Hall, Stockholm, Sweden.

The pleasure of talking is the inextinguishable passion of woman.

Alain René Lesage 

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Topic

Women Talking too much

Author

Alain René Lesage 

Source

Gil Blas

Medium

Novel

Genre

Picaresque

Language

French

Time

1724 1720s 18th century

Authentication Score 2

Citation

Lesage, Alain-Rene. L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane [History of Gil Blas de Santillane]. Paris: Pierre Ribou, 1724, bk. 7, ch. 7.

One need only remind oneself of all that we expect from life to see how very strange it is, and to arrive at the conclusion that man has found his way into it by mistake and does not really belong there.

Italo Svevo

Zeno's Conscience

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Topic

Strangeness of life Nature of life

Author

Italo Svevo

Source

Zeno's Conscience

Medium

Novel

Language

Italian

Time

1923 1920s 20th century

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Svevo, Italo. La coscienza di Zeno [Zeno's Conscience]. Milan: Giuseppe Morreale Editore, 1923.

Current Citation

Svevo, Italo. Zeno's Conscience, translated by William Weaver. Everyman's Library, 2001.

Respect was invented to cover the empty place where love should be.

Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

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Topic

Relationships Lack of love

Speaker

Anna Karenina

Author

Leo Tolstoy

Source

Anna Karenina

Medium

Novel

Language

Russian

Time

1877 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Tolstoy, Leo. Анна Каренина [Anna Karenina]. The Russian Messenger, 1875-1877. Serial.

Current Citation

Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Penguin Classics, 2014.

If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.

Leo Tolstoy

Anna Karenina

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Topic

Perfectionism

Speaker

Natalia

Author

Leo Tolstoy

Source

Anna Karenina

Medium

Novel

Language

Russian

Time

1877 1870s 19th century

Authentication Score 2

Original Citation

Tolstoy, Leo. Анна Каренина [Anna Karenina]. The Russian Messenger, 1875-1877. Serial.

Current Citation

Tolstoy, Leo. Anna Karenina, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Penguin Classics, 2014.