c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
When I left high school with my diploma, it felt like I was holding a key that would unlock the door to a better world. Every teacher I passed on my way down to the parking lot—the ones who suspended me for questioning them both earnestly and in jest, suspended me for using a contumacious hip-shake as my hallway gait, suspended me for me being me—the ones who would roll their eyes if my behavior was, on the whole, unpatriotic, unjustified, and immature—well, on the way down that long black declivity, their faces seemed so contorted as if lurking shadows had vice grips locked on their kidneys, wrenching it every time a teacher didn't want to remain upright and respectful. Yes, they didn’t want to me to succeed either! I pledge allegiance to the flag that united every authority in that indefensible school looked at me, even treated me, as if I was a terrorist, or at the very least, unpatriotic. But God—didn’t the red blood, white skin, and blue balls that flagged my physical existence suffice for me to have a little liberty and justice?
— Brian Celio, Catapult Soul
Worry:Interest paid on trouble before it falls due.
— Dean Ing
I refuse to have a life partner who spends his days pretending to be on a BBC show.
— Lisa Lutz, The Spellmans Strike Again
Is this spirited man the cook?" she shouted. "Are you responsible for this delightful feast? What a piece of luck! … What is it you say, Mr. Apples?""Like shittin' with the pope.""No, the other thing, less vulgar.""Whistlin' donkey.""Quite! A surprise and a delight like a whistling … How is it that these phrases make sense when you say them? Anyway, bring him along.
— Eli Brown, Cinnamon and Gunpowder
Another Chief remembered that since the Great Father promised them that they would never be moved they had been moved five times. "I think you had better put the Indians on wheels," he said sardonically, "and you can run them about whenever you wish.
— Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
If only, I thought, I could talk to Eugene just one more time. This was before I came to understand that you cannot make someone fall in love with you But here's what you can do. By arguing and pleading and screaming and crying and throwing plates and phoning a lot and bringing hot food and sending flowers and buying gifts and doing unsolicited favors and remembering a birthday and being nice and declaring your abiding love and trying hard or sometimes merely by being present, you can make someone who was hitherto lukewarm really detest you.
— Patricia Marx, Him Her Him Again the End of Him
Sorry. Sometimes my mouth engages before making contact with my brain.
— Jayson James, Tormented Discovery
Where's the pleasure in bein' the winner if the loser ain't alive to know they've lost?
— Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad
I'm basically one of the best people I know.
— Jeff Kinney, The Last Straw
Ish #19 "If your diet soda has zero calories, zero sugar and zero fat, what the hell are you drinking?
— Regina Griffin
Do you know why Satan is so angry all the time? Because whenever he works a particularly clever bit of mischief God uses it to serve his own Rigteous purposes.""So God uses wicked people as his tools?""God gives us the freedom to to do great evil, if we choose, then He uses his own freedom to create goodness out of that evil, for that is what He chooses.""So, in the long run, God always wins?""Yes, in the short run though it can be uncomfortable.
— Orson Scott Card, Ender's Shadow
There is, after all, no pleasure like that given by a woman who really wants to see you.
— Anthony Powell, The Acceptance World
Despite the fact that he loves books and owns a bookstore, A.J. does not particularly care for writers. He finds them to be unkempt, narcissistic, silly, and generally unpleasant people. He tries to avoid the ones who've written books he loves for fear that they will ruin their books for him.
— Gabrielle Zevin, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry
You'll call me a damned Jew, a Christ murderer, a secret worshipper of pigs and a kidnapper of christian children.” This was all said cheerfully. “How absurd! Who would want to kidnap children, Christian or otherwise? Vile things. The only mercy of children is that they grow up, as my son has but then, tragically, they beget more children. We do not learn life's lessons.
— Bernard Cornwell, The Archer's Tale
I should think this a gull, but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it; knavery cannot, sure, hide himself in such reverence.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Are you by any chance acquainted with the words 'steel toe'? Or do the words 'permanent dent' mean anything to you?"My locker door is not intimidated. "My grandfather was a vault at Fort Knox, and if you try to dent me with a kick you will only tear some ligament that will never mend.
— David Klass, You Don't Know Me
If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it in the dictionary, somewhere between 'shit' and 'syphilis'.
— Etienne, Drag and Drop
One of our professors described a lecture as 'a mystical process by which the notes on the pad of the lecturer pass on to the pad of the student, without passing through the mind of either'.
— John Cleese
Jolly good!" ... King [George VI] exclaimed [after Queen Elizabeth fired the gun at Hitler's photograph]. "You got him right in the n-n-n-naughty bits."... "Good," she said. "That's where I was aiming.
— Susan Elia MacNeal, Princess Elizabeth's Spy
I've admired a lot of people in my life time and some of them were actually alive.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
I stamped, certified, and lipsticked my life in a package sent through Priority Mail directly to the devil herself...and there's no turning back.
— Amy Holder, The Lipstick Laws
How hard can it be to find a girl and an elephant for Christ's sake?
— Sara Gruen
Hat head is a sad affliction wherein the chosen hat and the selected hairstyle are grossly incompatible. The unfortunate combination results in a condition that can be hidden only with the application of another hat.
— Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, Knitting Rules!: The Yarn Harlot Unravels the Mysteries of Swatching, Stashing, Ribbing & Rolling to Free Your Inner Knitter
Jewish vampires: Crosses & holy water won’t hurt me whatcha gonna try next?
— Tasha Turner
Fill what’s empty, empty what’s full, and scratch where it itches, your Grace. That’s my motto.
— Melissa McPhail, Cephrael's Hand
Jericho stopped him before he left. He slid the ring off his finger and handed it to him. "Take this."Asmodeus curled his lip as he shrank back from it. "I'm not about to marry your ugly ass, boy. No offense, but you ain't my type. I like my dates with less body hair... and with female parts attached by nature."Jericho let out an aggravated growl. "It's not a wedding ring, asshole. It's Berith's ring. You get into trouble you can summon him to help you get out of there."That completely changed his attitude. "Oh, hey, that could be worth an engagement to you." Asmodeus grinned as he palmed it. "If I'm back in a few hours... well, I don't want to think about that. I might change my mind about doing this. I'm thinking happy thoughts. Creamed dog innards and rotten steak. Yeah. Yum." He vanished.
— Sherrilyn Kenyon
Borman's dumping urine. Urine [in] approximately one minute." Two lines further along, we see Lovell saying, "What a sight to behold!
— Mary Roach, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
My secret world of bosom sculpting is crashing down around me. I’m destined for bra-stuffing rehab in a distant boobicus minimus land. I just know it.
— Amy Holder, The Lipstick Laws
Scott had some sort of power, or force field. In essence, he was like fucking gay guy repellant. Not a single gay guy would come anywhere near me, let alone talk to or hit on me when he was around.
— Jayson James, Drifting
It's a hat," said Jess.Manx stretched. "Yes.""A hat with - just to be clear - a lizard on it. A real, dead lizard.""An iguana, yea. It's been stuffed.""I can see that. Any idiot can see that, but it doesn;t address the issue.""The issue being?""Manx, you're wearing a goddamn reptile! On your head! With pride! It's like you're the lovechild of Carmen Miranda and a taxidermist!
— Foz Meadows
There is something called the rapture of the deep, and it refers to what happens when a deep-sea diver spends too much time at the bottom of the ocean and can't tell which way is up. When he surfaces, he's liable to have a condition called the bends, where the body can't adapt to the oxygen levels in the atmosphere. All of this happens to me when I surface from a great book.
— Nora Ephron, I Feel Bad about My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman
Himmlisch ist's wenn ich bezwungen Meine irdische Begier; Aber doch wenn's nich gelungen Hatt' ich auch recht huebsch Plaisir!Loosely translated:It is heavenly, when I overcomeMy earthly desiresBut nevertheless, when I'm not successful,It can also be quite pleasurable.
— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Elsa's joke Where do baby apes sleep? In apricots!
— Jacqueline Wilson
Taggle was absorbed in the meat pie. ‘It’s covered in BREAD,’ he huffed. ‘What fool has covered MEAT with BREAD?
— Erin Bow, Plain Kate
It had better be. It doesn't do much when it's soft.
— Brent Weeks, The Way of Shadows
Wow,” says Peter, “when your guidance counselor tells you to die, you really have problems.
— Adam Selzer, I Kissed a Zombie, and I Liked It
Stupid deer," I said, embarrassed about being startled. "We need a ladder.""I think they're easier to shoot with a rifle.""I'm not talking about the deer," I said, hitting Milo on the back of his shoulder. "We need a ladder to look over the wall.""Or a catapult," Milo said seriously.
— Obert Skye, Pillage
There is a tale...It tells of the days when a blight hung over our land. Nothing prospered. Nothing flourished. Not even zucchini would grow.
— Cameron Dokey, Golden:  A Retelling of Rapunzel
She ran out of her marriage the way a woman can run out of a pair of sandals when she decides to let go and really dash.
— Stephen King, Just After Sunset
Try again. No no no, eyes up, eyes up! When you bow to someone you look at them, not at the floor. Don't look at her in the eye though lad, that's rude. And not THERE, either.
— Stephen Deas, The Thief-Taker's Apprentice
No one could honestly say that a musical makes sense.
— Siegfried Kracauer
Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals.
— John Steinbeck
While like most men, Sam prided himself on being equipped with a supernatural internal compass that kept him from ever being lost, he'd also learned to concede those rare times when that compass seemed to be temporary disrepair.
— Clive Cussler, Lost Empire
Shut up, you fool...Really. I’m running out of things to throw at you.
— Kale Lawrence, The Clairvoyance Clock
Shut up, Arthur,' said my mother, and he zipped his mouth shut like an infuriating child.Ginger started to laugh. Not at anything in particular, but just because Ginger was stoned.
— Sarah Winman, When God Was a Rabbit
They can afford to smile because they all have teeth so dazzling if they dropped them in the snow they'd be lost forever.
— Frank McCourt, 'Tis
It was a hot, moist armpit of a night...
— Mike Carey, The Naming of the Beasts
I'd much rather have a brain of my own than be popular.
— Dori Hillestad Butler, The Truth about Truman School
Now, tomorrow Miss Laurie McCrae and me, we have an appointment with a sky pilot who will make it proper for us to travel in double harness.
— Louis L'Amour, The Proving Trail
She batted thoseeyelashes at me so hard I thought I felt a breeze.
— Maddie Dawson, The Stuff That Never Happened
I sprayed my dog with off and he still sits in my favorite chair!!
— Neil Leckman
Apollo wanted out. Out of Aphrodite, out of this bathroom, out of this house, and out of this life.
— Marie Phillips, Gods Behaving Badly
True...I hear voices in my head keep talking to me. The good thing for now is...I never answer them back.
— Timothy Pina
There's something to be said about drinking a carafe of wine by yourself ... I just can't remember at the moment what it is! (said after drinking a carafe of wine by himself)
— Gerard de Marigny, The Watchman of Ephraim
From the bow of the canoe she asked, "Do you know a rain dance?""First I need a virgin.
— Carl Hiaasen, Nature Girl
who me?"anita blake seriesby: Laurell K Hamilton
— Laurell K. Hamilton, Danse Macabre
Well, so you don't get too cocky, I myself often complete the TV Guide crossword puzzle." He puffed out his chest. "In pen.
— Shelly Laurenston, Go Fetch!
But if anyoneso much as threatened them because of what Kaiahad once done, she would turn the Slumber PartyMassacre into Blood, Bath and Beyond, adocumentary by Kaia Skyhawk.
— Gena Showalter, The Darkest Surrender
Magnanimous of you.'His mouth twitched. 'Mmm. Use more words like that, please. Schoolmistress words. Long, impressive ones.' He'd made the last three words sound like an innuendo.
— Julie Anne Long, How the Marquess Was Won
What's with that?” Butters screamed, his voice high and frightened. “Just covering his head with his arms? Didn't he see the lawyer in the movie?
— Jim Butcher, Dead Beat
I knew there was something peculiar about you," she said. "And I mean that as the highest compliment." I'd always known I was strange. I never dreamed I was peculiar.
— Ransom Riggs, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
AN ACADEMIC DEFINITION of Lynchian might be that the term "refers to a particular kind of irony where the very macabre and the very mundane combine in such a way as to reveal the former's perpetual containment within the latter." But like postmodern or pornographic, Lynchian is one of those Porter Stewart-type words that's ultimately definable only ostensively-i.e., we know it when we see it. Ted Bundy wasn't particularly Lynchian, but good old Jeffrey Dahmer, with his victims' various anatomies neatly separated and stored in his fridge alongside his chocolate milk and Shedd Spread, was thoroughgoingly Lynchian. A recent homicide in Boston, in which the deacon of a South Shore church reportedly gave chase to a vehicle that bad cut him off, forced the car off the road, and shot the driver with a highpowered crossbow, was borderline Lynchian. A Rotary luncheon where everybody's got a comb-over and a polyester sport coat and is eating bland Rotarian chicken and exchanging Republican platitudes with heartfelt sincerity and yet all are either amputees or neurologically damaged or both would be more Lynchian than not.
— David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again:  Essays and Arguments
Vikings don't have faults, they have clubs.
— Tara Brown
All men are selfish, brutal and inconsiderate--and I wish I could find one.
— Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution
Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.
— Mark Twain
There was not a lot of room for someone like me, who kept the gossip mill running like a hamster wheel.
— Molly Harper, Driving Mr. Dead
When someone says "just saying" what they really mean is, "You would be a colossal idiot to not take my advice." (on Facebook)
— Stephen Altrogge
So it happened at last: I was about to become a thief, a cheap milk-stealer. Here was your lash-in-the-pen genius, your one story-writer: a thief.
— John Fante, Ask the Dust
I am concussed,' I announced, entirely sure of my self-diagnosis.''You're fine,' Takumi said as he jogged back towards me. ''Let's get out of here before we're killed.''''I'm sorry,' I said. ''But I can't get up. I have suffered a mild concussion.''Lara ran out and sat down next to me.''Are you OK?''''I am concussed,'' I said.Takumi sat down with me and looked me in the eye. ''Do you know what happened to you?''''The beast got me.''''Do you know where you are?''''I'm on a triple-and-a-half date.''''You're fine,'' Takumi said. ''Let's go.''And then I leaned forward and threw up on Lara's pants.
— John Green, Looking for Alaska
For God's sake put on your glasses, Sam. You're staring right at my boobs.
— Jillian Eaton, After Ever
What do you mean, is that it? I just saved his career and the CIA from ruin and he calls me a perfidious ass.""What's perfidious mean?" Ace asked from the driver's seat."You deceived him and stole his girlfriend out from under his nose," Julia said to Conrad. "I think technically 'ass' is a pretty mild revilement.""Revilement?" Ace looked at one and then the other in his rearview. "This is some kind of spy talk, isn't it? Okay, I'm down with it. Just tell me what it means.
— Misty Evans, Operation Sheba
Switzerland is only bearable covered with snow," Aunt Augusta said, "like some people are only bearable under a sheet.
— Graham Greene, Travels With My Aunt
Jewish vampires: We turn into cats not bats bwaaahaha
— Tasha Turner
Trust me, I write fiction.
— Rob Mahan
That widow’s peak is preposterous. God. It really makes you feel the sad dearth of widow’s peaks in daily life. We could, like, use him as breeding stock to seed widow’s peaks into the populace.”“My god. What’s with all the mating and seed talk?”“I’m just saying,” Zuzana said reasonably. “I’m crazy about Mik, okay, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do my part for the proliferation of widow’s peaks. As a favor to the gene pool. You would, too, right? Or maybe…” She shot Karou a sidelong glance. “You already have?
— Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Wakey wakey eggs and bacey!
— Jayson James, Drifting
Jewish vampires: Garlic? As a weapon? No its a spice silly human
— Tasha Turner
He done his level best.Was he a mining on the flat..He done it with a zest..Was he a leading of the choir..He done his level best.If he'd a reg'lar task to do,He never took no rest..Or if 'twas off and on the same..He done his level best.If he was preachin' on his beat,He'd tramp from east to west,And north to south ..in cold and heat..He done his level best.He'd Yank a sinner outen (Hades),And land him with the blest;Then snatch a prayer'n waltz in again,And do his level best.He'd cuss and sing and howl and pray,And dance and drink and jest,He done his level best.Whate'er this man was sot to doHe done it with a zest;No matter what his contract was,He'd do his level best...
— Mark Twain, The Complete Humorous Sketches and Tales of Mark Twain
It wasn't a lie, not at all like one of those lies she told herself all the time, like This is the last drink of the evening, or I'm not going to set the bitch's house on fire.
— Melissa de la Cruz, Witches of East End
As Stephanie and Lula were going after the bad guys, Lula was making preparations from the trunk of her Firebird. Stephanie looked inside and stopped breathing for a beat. "That's a rocket launcher!" "Yep," Lula said. "It's a big boy. I got it at a yard sale in the projects.
— Janet Evanovich, Explosive Eighteen
Anything else, Your Majesty?" "I didn't say my prayers." "I'll say them for you. Our father who art in et cetera, bless all the rotten cousins and kill Jenny. Amen.
— Maggie Osborne, The Promise of Jenny Jones
It's just going to add to him thinking that I am a crazy, wanky, greenie, hybriddriving hippie," I complained."Has he seen your bomb of a car?" Fran asked in disbelief. "Greenpeace arranges a protest every time it leaves your driveway.
— Sean Kennedy, Tigers and Devils
When Grandma Mazur is talking about the reason for the improved play of her 91-year-old bowling teammate, she said: "She's doing better now that we got her the longer tubing to her oxygen tank.
— Janet Evanovich, Explosive Eighteen
Here she was, being rescued by a socialist, feminist, lesbian, baby-killing, foreign terrorist. What would the ladies in the sewing circle say to that?
— Hillary Jordan, When She Woke
Tom leaned in and spoke in a low, confidential voice, "Sir. You have a little something..." He lifted his forefinger surreptitiously to his own upper lip. Harrison brought his hand to his mustache to brush something off it, his eyes questioning. "What is it?""Carpet remnant?" Tom suggested.
— Jez Morrow, Force of Law
Connie, giving her thoughts on why Vinnie's hot temper is less than normal, says: "Lucille must have fed him a Vallium smoothie this morning.
— Janet Evanovich, Explosive Eighteen
He downed the last of his coffee, carried his mug over to the pot, poured himself a refill, and returned to the 
— Lynda Hilburn, The Vampire Shrink
What would you tell her about me?”He did not just ask that.“You did not just ask that.” She chuckled.“I’m serious,” he smiled.“Very well, if you must know, I would say that you are arrogant and foolish, too handsome for your own good and far too cognizant of your own intellect. Unbending, unsympathetic, dogmatic, pig-headed—”“Handsome?” he interrupted, unable to keep the smile from his face. “And intelligent?”“Don’t forget arrogant.
— Leigh LaValle, The Runaway Countess
I was out of salt so I threw pepper over my left shoulder for luck and the poor guy behind me almost sneezed himself to death.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
Does my grandma count as a bodyguard?
— Holly Hood, Ink
My bullshit metre is reading that as false'.
— Charlaine Harris, Dead as a Doornail
So the world was nuts and he'd suddenly discovered a kink for geeks. There were worse things.
— Louisa Edwards, Just One Taste
For Breakfast I like my coffee warm and cozy and my eggs funny side up.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
Pardon me Mam,I'm new in town, could you please show me the way to your house?
— Frank Calvin Mann
We nearly had our asses handed to us in a sling by a bunny rabbit?
— A.J. Culpepper
You can shit in one hand and wish in another and see which one gets full faster. Or... you can just take my word for it.
— C.V. Hunt, Legacy
I'm too shy to express my sexual needs except over the phone to people I don't know.
— Gary Shandling
Let me guess," Brynn said from across the room. "Another brother, right?"Keegan glanced at Brynn, who was staring at Ronin with an expression of disbelief. He switched back to English. "This is our younger brother, Ronin.""Of course he is." Brynn let out an incredulous chuckle. "Did they specifically breed you guys in a lab or something?"He exchanged a confused look with Ronin. What did that mean?Bryn must have caught the look, because she explained, "Since you're all so hot, I mean.
— Rosalie Lario, Blood of the Demon
If at first you don't succeed, try to eat a big lunch and take a nap...er wait, no... #badadvice
— Jayce O'Neal
What are you working on?" Elizabeth asked. Nate could hear her tapping a pencil on her desk. She took notes during their conversations. He didn't know what she did with the notes, but it bothered him."I have a lecture at the sanctuary in four days." Why, why had he told her? Why? Now she'd rattle down the mountain in her ancient Mercedes that looked like a Nazi staff car, sit in the audience, and ask all the questions that she knew in advance he couldn't answer.
— Christopher Moore, Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings
That’s crazy,” Gabriel said. “We must be seventy million years in the past.”“Nearly a hundred and twenty-five million,” Ohin said. “It seems far, but time is really interrelational. Every moment is just as far from every other.“Right,” Gabriel said. “Of course. That makes perfect sense.” Sema was right. He was at a breaking point. And he broke right past it. His eyes rolled up in his head and he passed out, falling back into the mattress of the bed.
— G.L. Breedon
The surgeon tells me that you're a sorcerer," Pym said. "Is that so?"Jaki looked to the captain with the glare of the masts in his eyes. "Yes."Pym weighed this disclosure. "You speak with the dead?""Yes."The captain's eyes screwed up intently. "What do they say to you?""They don't talk back."Pym and Mister Blackheart laughed in unison...The captain said, "Mister Blackheart wants to know what kind of sorcerer you are."Jaki pondered a response and finally said, "I was learning to catch souls before my teacher was killed.""Souls, eh? And what do you do with them after you catch them?""I put them back in their bodies.""Ah, then you're telling us you're a surgeon.
— A.A. Attanasio, Wyvern
Shayna thinking about Jensen:" ....From my first glance I knew he was atleast three or four inches taller than me and I could tell his lightweight sweater hid a well muscled chest and arms, but lean, not meaty. I was aware of an excess of saliva in my mouth and forced myself to swallow, trying not to blush when I heard Jodi snicker quietly next to me.
— Shauna Granger, Earth
We all have different languages
—  but we all really mean the same thing.
The mountain trembled like an earthquake. Dust flew into the sky. And the rock turned dark red, like the color of blood'. 'How would you know?' Asks Sindhi cap. 'You only have a black and white television'.'But it's a very good one. You can almost see colours.
— Mohsin Hamid, Moth Smoke
She gave me another of those long keen looks, and I could see that she was again asking herself if her favourite nephew wasn't steeped to the tonsils in the juice of the grape.
— P.G. Wodehouse, Plum Pie
You can crab over the morning paper and kick the shins of the guy in the next seat at the movies and feel mean and discouraged and sneer at the politicians but there are a lot of nice people in the world just the same.
— Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely
The lieutenant’s fooling around again with the telegraph girl at the station,” said the corporal, after he had gone. “He’s been running after her for a fortnight and he’s always frightfully furious when he comes from the telegraph office and he says about her: “She’s a whore. She won’t sleep with me!
— Jaroslav Hašek, The Good Soldier Švejk
The sun came out the next day, which it had no right to do.
— Maggie  Hall, The Conspiracy of Us
So we waited. I felt useless. I felt like I was in the way. I wished I had some nervous habits so I could indulge in them.
— Moira J. Moore, Heroes at Odds
There's something not quite Christian about it," Tony said. He sat back in his chair and looked up to where his Bible sat on the shelf. "I can't put my finger on why exactly, but it doesn't seem right for a couple of young ladies to be out there in the middle of the night, obsessing over their telescopes.
— Joey Comeau, Bible Camp Bloodbath
A mere redrawing of borders, a change in governments, those things can never faze a Jewess with a good supply of hand wipes in her bag.
— Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union
But how do we know it's really you? I mean, I could put a saucepan on my head and call myself the God of Boiled Dumplings; wouldn't mean I was telling the truth.
— K.J. Parker, Shadow
If your parents never had children, chances are you won’t either.
— Dick Cavett
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
— John Lyman
On Decoration Day, while everyone else in town was at the cemetery decorating the graves of our Glorious War Dead, Willie Beaner and me, Robert Burns Hewitt, took Mabel Cramm's bloomers and run them up the flagpole in front of the town hall. That was the beginning of all my troubles.
— Katherine Paterson, Preacher's Boy
Which just goes to show, I guess, that dinner parties are like everything else - not as fragile as we think they are.
— Julie Powell, Julie and Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen: How One Girl Risked Her Marriage, Her Job, and Her Sanity to Master the Art of Living
In my opinion, the person who created the torture device called gym class should be clobbered with an enormous frozen cucumber. Not to mention, the person who decided it would be a great idea to schedule me in first period gym every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday also deserves a heavy-handed whacking with the same frozen cucumber.
— Amy Holder, The Lipstick Laws
I could still see that Pauline was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever met, but of the ancient fire which had caused me to bung my heart at her feet that night at the Plaza there remained not a trace. Analysing this, if analyzing is the word I want, I came to the conclusion that this changed outlook was due to the fact that she was so dashed dynamic. Unquestionably an eyeful, Pauline Stoker had the grave defect of being one of those girls who want you to come and swim a mile before breakfast and rout you out when you are trying to snatch a wink of sleep after lunch for a merry five sets of tennis.
— P.G. Wodehouse
Renee: “The Greek government doesn’t know that I found anything that day in the temple. And they for sure wouldn’t want to know about the little mess I left behind.” She grimaced.Trout: “Little mess? You started a freakin’ cave in, you moron. Nice work by the way. Way to keep up international relations. ‘Uh, yeah, hi, I’m Renée, I’m an American. I’m here to, you know, like, drink all your wine, trash the joint, steal all your valuable shit and then bolt the country.’ Why didn’t you just drop your shorts and pee in the Parthenon?
— John C. Stipa, No Greater Sacrifice
When the watermelons were as large as a child's head, the women boiled them, but they collapsed into a tasteless green mush that no one could eat, not the children, not the cow.
— Annie Proulx, Accordion Crimes
I have my moments, I just can't remember where I put them.
— Neil Leckman
Tell me, Mr. Bennet, how can we amuse you during your visit? Do you hunt?” Lady Catherine was spooning her turtle soup, blowing delicately to cool it.“I am certain an animal would sooner die of laughter than gunshot wound if I even made the attempt.
— Karen V. Wasylowski
Everyone knows he's crazier than a shaved mule in a toboggan race.
— Amy Holder, The Lipstick Laws
Admiral Spartan thinks that the object must be exposed and penetrated with all possible speed.
— Lincoln Child
I dinnae get people, like they all want to be watched, to be seen, like all the time. They put up their pictures online and let people they dinnae like look at them! And people they’ve never met as well, and they all pretend tae be shinier than they are – and some are even posting on like four sites; their bosses are watching them at work, the cameras watch them on the bus, and on the train, and in Boots, and even outside the chip shop. Then even at home – they’re going online to look and see who they can watch, and to check who’s watching them!
— Jenni Fagan, The Panopticon
Yep, ouch. He and apologies didn’t get along. 
— Larissa Ione, Lethal Rider
Who’d have thought your screwball brother could have gone so serial-killer fucktwat insane?
— Larissa Ione
Chyna Shepherd, untouched and alive and able to pee.
— Dean Koontz, Intensity
Sane people did what their neighbours did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.
— George Eliot, Middlemarch
You’re practically begging for it, aren’t you?” he murmured.“No.”His chuckle rasped over her senses. “I like begging, Reagan.”“I’m not going to beg.”He was silent for a moment, his fingers still playing, and she wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. Then he said softly, “Damn.
— Kelly Jamieson, Power Shift
Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.
— Aaron Copland
I hated her out of principle
—  and that principle was bitterness.
Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off.
— Charles Dickens, The Seven Poor Travellers
If you have to pay the bills, and you write something you're not proud of, use a pen-name for that.
— Dean Koontz
Mr Kingsley begins then by exclaiming- 'O the chicanery, the wholesale fraud, the vile hypocrisy, the conscience-killing tyranny of Rome! We have not far to seek for an evidence of it. There's Father Newman to wit: one living specimen is worth a hundred dead ones. He, a Priest writing of Priests, tells us that lying is never any harm.'I interpose: 'You are taking a most extraordinary liberty with my name. If I have said this, tell me when and where.'Mr Kingsley replies: 'You said it, Reverend Sir, in a Sermon which you preached, when a Protestant, as Vicar of St Mary's, and published in 1844; and I could read you a very salutary lecture on the effects which that Sermon had at the time on my own opinion of you.'I make answer: 'Oh...NOT, it seems, as a Priest speaking of Priests-but let us have the passage.'Mr Kingsley relaxes: 'Do you know, I like your TONE. From your TONE I rejoice, greatly rejoice, to be able to believe that you did not mean what you said.'I rejoin: 'MEAN it! I maintain I never SAID it, whether as a Protestant or as a Catholic.'Mr Kingsley replies: 'I waive that point.'I object: 'Is it possible! What? waive the main question! I either said it or I didn't. You have made a monstrous charge against me; direct, distinct, public. You are bound to prove it as directly, as distinctly, as publicly-or to own you can't.''Well,' says Mr Kingsley, 'if you are quite sure you did not say it, I'll take your word for it; I really will.'My WORD! I am dumb. Somehow I thought that it was my WORD that happened to be on trial. The WORD of a Professor of lying, that he does not lie!But Mr Kingsley reassures me: 'We are both gentlemen,' he says: 'I have done as much as one English gentleman can expect from another.'I begin to see: he thought me a gentleman at the very time he said I taught lying on system...
— John Henry Newman, Apologia Pro Vita Sua
...hoping that he might peek through a gap in the fance and see that Patch was really a big softy, all bark and no bite, or, as they sometimes say in England, "All mouth and no trousers"!
— Nick Trout, Ever By My Side: A Memoir in Eight [Acts] Pets
Veil wouldn’t make his military invincible, but it would render every other military indefensible. Veil was it. Game over, fuckholes.
— Aaron Overfield, Veil
With sunglasses, a hat, and half a pack of Band-Aids, Roger could pass as a human.
— Nadia Higgins, Zombie Camp
One of the things I love about labeling myself as an author is that I can read books and call it "researching writing styles."--Mike Mankoff
— Mike Mankoff
It is a mistake," Labruyère tells us, "to be in love without an ample fortune.
— Marcel Proust, In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower
If we take the president of GM, they'll make us pay to give him back." (said by a kidnapper)
— Owen Laukkanen, The Professionals
If you don't succeed the first time - you're about average
— Frederick L. Coxen
Zane wondered if Ty was a mama‟s boy. He tipped his head to the side, watching them as he picked out a piece of warm bread, and thought maybe so. Not that he would ever voice that opinion to Ty until he was good and ready to die.
— Madeleine Urban, Sticks & Stones
Seeing how I've held your penis in my hand, I think that puts you firmly in the not a stranger category.
— Jessica Scott, Because of You
A true Vor, Miles told himself severely, does not bury his face in his liegewoman's breasts and cry—even if he is at a convenient height for it.
— Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice
She was thong-climbing-her-ass pissed.
— Caris Roane, Wings of Fire
In Wilson's scale of evaluations breakfast rated just after life itself and ahead of the chance of immortality.
— Robert A. Heinlein, By His Bootstraps
Ish #1 "It's not your mama's macaroni and cheese if you used spaghetti noodles.
— Regina Griffin
Ish #109 "If MapQuest says make a right, go straight. You'll get there quicker.
— Regina Griffin
SHUT UP!...PADLE!
— Ridley Pearson, Disney after Dark
The worst thing about the dead rising? (Other than, you know, all the zombies?) The smell. Nothing kills the mood like the odor of three day old road kill and poo... -Katherine Anita Cho(KyCH)
— Shawn Durnin
You learn to smile even in you liver?''Even in my lire, Ketut. Big smile in my liver.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love
Holy hell, Trev! What kind of move was that?”Trevor leaned over her with a big smile on his face. “You really thought I would give up that easy? I am a geek, Cassie, not a friggin’ wimp. It’s called the internet and how to videos.
— Cecilia Aubrey & Chris Almeida, Countermeasure
You were listening at the door, Gigi!""No, Grandmamma.""Yes, you had your ear to the keyhole. You must never listen at key-holes. You don't hear properly and so you get things all wrong.
— Colette, Gigi and Julie de Carneilhan
Webster said, ''Time them skeeters get done with that old man, his French blood will be all gone and he will speak American as good as we do.
— Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country
Every so often an author comes along and changes the world. I am not that author!
— Rachel Rueben
He said that it was very difficult to become an astronaut. I said that I knew. You had to become an officer in the air force and you had to take lots of orders and be prepared to kill other human beings, and I couldn't take orders. Also I didn't have 20/20 vision, which you needed to be a pilot.
— Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Well, looks like you won't be reaching nirvana anytime soon."She pushed a stray lock of hair off her forehead and sniffed. "Yes, I suppose that's true. I guess I'll just have to settle for a trip to Idaho.
— Beth Hoffman, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
One year I went as a pirate, but from then on I went as a hobo. It's a word you don't hear anymore. Along with 'tramp,' it's been replaced by 'homeless person,' which isn't the same thing. Unlike someone who was evicted or lost his house in a fire, the hobo roughed it by choice. Being at liberty, unencumbered by bills and mortgages, better suited his drinking schedule, and so he found shelter wherever he could, never a bum, but something much less threatening, a figure of merriment, almost.
— David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Are you calling us pigs?’ Froi asked, watching as Rafuel winced for the tenth time at the formality of Froi’s Charyn.Rafuel thought for a moment and then nodded.‘Actually yes, I am. Pig-like.’Froi turned back to Trevanion and Perri, who were discussing the need for longbow training in the rock village.‘What is it?’ Perri asked Froi.‘He said we eat like pigs.’Trevanion and Perri thought about it for a moment and then went back to their conversation.
— Melina Marchetta
It seems - and who so astonished as they? - that they had held back material facts; that they were guilty of both suppressio veri and suggestio falsi (well-known gods against whom they often offended); further, that they were malignant in their dispositions, untrustworthy in their characters, pernicious and revolutionary in their influences, abandoned to the devils of wilfulness, pride, and a most intolerable conceit. Ninthly, and lastly, they were to have a care and to be very careful.
— Rudyard Kipling, The Complete Stalky and Co.
Don't that make your bosom plim?
— Thomas Hardy
You came up this gut-wrenching road yesterday by yourself?" Cassie exclaimed. "You deserve a good cuffing just for driving this goat path on your own.""It's not so bad once you get used to dodging the ruts.""You've got some nerve calling these canyons ruts.""Cassandra Hudson, where is your sense of adventure?""I dropped it off going over that last rut-crossing when only two wheels were on the ground.""Those ones are a bit exhilarating, aren't they?" Alexandra shot Cassie a quick look and wink. "Keep your eyes on the road!""What road?""Exactly!
— H.H. Laura, Larkspur
Lucille must have fed him a Vallium smoothie this morning.
— Janet Evanovich, Explosive Eighteen
Cayl replies...I understand the human reproductive system, Agent Denning; I’m here to capture a killer, not indulge in these intrusive human senses.
— Tielle St. Clare, Collective Memory
Sell your book like a can of beans & your readers will place the same value on it.
— Stuart Aken
You know what I could use? A thrill.
— Jim Moorman
Real life... Witches: Wiccan practitioners. Werewolves: rare strain of rabies. Zombies: Prions/Plague. Vampires: Hemophilia/Porphyria
— Solange nicole
(About a cookbook...)- What about this one? Maids of Honor?- Weeelll, they starts OUT as Maids of Honor...but they ends up Tarts.
— Terry Pratchett, Maskerade
The beauty of the ultrasound scan is something that only parents can appreciate, but Emma had seen these things before and knew what was required of her. ‘Beautiful,’ she sighed, though in truth it could have been a Polaroid of the inside of his pocket.
— David Nicholls, One Day
Poisons are more my thing
— Kate Morton, The House at Riverton
Every week seems to bring another luxuriantly creamy envelope, the thickness of a letter-bomb, containing a complex invitation – a triumph of paper engineering – and a comprehensive dossier of phone numbers, email addresses, websites, how to get there, what to wear, where to buy the gifts. Country house hotels are being block-booked, great schools of salmon are being poached, vast marquees are appearing overnight like Bedouin tent cities. Silky grey morning suits and top hats are being hired and worn with an absolutely straight face, and the times are heady and golden for florists and caterers, string quartets and Ceilidh callers, ice sculptors and the makers of disposable cameras. Decent Motown cover-bands are limp with exhaustion. Churches are back in fashion, and these days the happy couple are travelling the short distance from the place of worship to the reception on open-topped London buses, in hot-air balloons, on the backs of matching white stallions, in micro-lite planes. A wedding requires immense reserves of love and commitment and time off work, not least from the guests. Confetti costs eight pounds a box. A bag of rice from the corner shop just won’t cut it anymore.
— David Nicholls, One Day
My medication must be wearing off I'm starting to think my jokes are funny.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
I just tripped over a pair of shoes and almost fell down and broke my neck and no I wasn't wearing them.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
Lunar Eclipse doesn't that sound like a car you can only drive at night?
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
He was staring hard, not at his wife and me but at his daughter watching us. In his cold pupil, in the firm twist of his lips, was reflected Madame Miyagi's orgasm reflected in her daughter's gaze.
— Italo Calvino, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler
My question was:How did I go from merely seeing the dirty French Santa in a bar to being in his hotel room the next morning? And this presented me with an actual equation. How did one plus one equal old French Santa?
— Augusten Burroughs
Her Majesty to the theatre. The performance took place on a stage erected in the courtyard, and Her Majesty closed in one part of her veranda for the use of the guests and Court ladies. During the performance I began to feel very drowsy, and eventually fell fast asleep leaning against one of the pillars. I awoke rather suddenly to find that something had been dropped into my mouth, but on investigation I found it was nothing worse than a piece of candy, which I immediately proceeded to eat. On approaching Her Majesty, she asked me how I had enjoyed the candy, and told me not to sleep, but to have a good time like the rest. I never saw Her Majesty in better humor. She played with us just like a young girl, and one could hardly recognize in her the severe Empress Dowager we knew her to be.
— Der Ling, Two Years in the Forbidden City
By the time he was done with the deer it had been dark three hours and his bad leg was singing 'Ave Maria'.
— Stephen King, The Stand
This has always bothered me. If "Change" is the only constant how can we have absolutes?
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
Lots of ways to have your steak "Well done, medium rare, rare, bloody or fetch me a club".
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
If I could out run the Angel of Death I'd probably die from lack of breath!
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
I was in a department store and the clerk came up to me and said "do you want to lay on the couch' I said "Where's your clip board?
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
If you have more cavities than you have teeth you've led a 'Sweet' life.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
[Like they say,] small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it.
— Dave Courtney, Raving Lunacy: Clubbed To Death
I have my welcome mat turned around backwards so when people leave they think they’re going to a better place.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
Three eggs two slices of toast a cup of coffee an episode of Mr. Ed. A Violin and a bowl of fruit what else does a man need?
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
When I get to Heaven I just know I'm going to forget my toothbrush.
— Stanley Victor Paskavich
Yo! Hold my poodle!
— Shawn Wayans
A word to the wise an't nesisary its the stupid ones who need the edvise.
— Eliga H. Gould, The Persistence of Empire: British Political Culture in the Age of the American Revolution
Sorry about your bad luck.
— David  Perry, The Cyclops Conspiracy
There is no god but Road Runner and Chuck Jones is his prophet.
— John Steiner
You’ll be dethroned faster than a coke snorting beauty queen.
— Eric Luper, Seth Baumgartner's Love Manifesto
Possession of the box conferred a kind of power on the wielder--which was that anyone, confronted with the hypnotic glass eye, would submissively obey the most peremptory orders about stance and expression.
— Terry Pratchett, The Color of Magic
...he spent whole days and nights over his books
—  and thus with little sleeping and much reading his brains dried up to such a degree that he lost the use of his reason.
He'd never asked for an exciting life. What he really liked, what he sought on every occasion, was boredom. The trouble was that boredom tended to explode in your face. Just when he thought he'd found it he'd be suddenly involved in what he supposed other people - thoughtless, feckless people - would call an adventure. And he'd be forced to visit many strange lands and meet exotic and colourful people, although not for very long because usually he'd be running. He'd seen the creation of the universe, although not from a good seat, and had visited Hell and the afterlife. He'd been captured, imprisoned, rescued, lost and marooned. Sometimes it had all happened on the same day.
— Terry Pratchett
The news that Daisy Miller was surrounded by half a dozen wonderful mustaches checked Winterbourne's impulse to go straightway to see her.
— Henry James, Daisy Miller
wear flannel next to your skin, and never believe in eternal punishment.
— Julian Barnes, Arthur & George
Livvy and me together in an elevator for four hours..and we're good. To some eyes the fact that we're both alive could be viewed as a minor miracle.
— Michael D. Beil
Never can tell when you might come on somebody needs skinning.
— Louis L'Amour, The Proving Trail
The one that sang, old Janine, was always whispering into the g***** microphone before she sang. She'd say, 'And now we like to geeve you our impression of Vooly Voo Fransay. Eet ees the story of leetle Fransh girl who comes to a beeg ceety, just like New York, and falls een love wees a leetle boy from Brookleen. We hope you like eet.' Then, when she was all done whispering and being cute as hell, she'd sing some dopey song, half in English and half in French, and drive all the phonies in the place mad with joy.
— J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
You know I hate to chase. I'm only here to talk, but if you run, I'll have to chase and we both know where that usually ends up.
— Kaye Chambers, Angelic Avenger
Renee: “Trout, get your mind out of the gutter.”Trout: “Can’t help it—it’s attached to my body.
— John C. Stipa, No Greater Sacrifice
One day in 1948 or 1949, the Brentwood County Mart, a shopping complex in an upscale neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, was the scene of a slight disturbance that carried overtones of the most spectacular upheaval in twientieth-century music. Marta Feuchtwanger, wife of émigré novelist Lion Feuchtwanger, was examining grapefruit in the produce section when she heard a voice shouting German from the far end of the aisle. She looked up to see Arnold Schoenberg, the pioneer of atonal music and the codifier of twelve-tone composition, bearing down on her, with his bald pate and burning eyes. Decades later, in conversation with the writer Lawrence Weschler, Feuchtwanger could recall every detail of the encounter, including the weight of the grapefruit in her hand. “Lies, Frau Marta, lies!” Schoenberg was yelling. “You have to know, I never had syphilis!
— Alex Ross