Catch 22,
Joseph Heller, 1961
As recommended by: crazeecracka, Peter Ludemann, mattd72, AttleeOrwell, Yossarianspal and michaeliforget
Joseph Heller coined a term for absurd contradictions in Catch-22, the novel most missed from last week’s list. “There’s a catch,” says Yossarianspal, “Catch-22 doesn’t get a mention.” The term has entered common parlance and would win Heller recognition on its own, but Catch-22 is replete with other oft-quoted phrases. Mattd72 picks the famous description of Major Major: “Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.”
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Mark Twain, 1884
As recommended by: philbertdelamorgue, Essrog and HouseofTiles
Mark Twain worked to capture the spoken voice in all his books, but nowhere did he manage it so gracefully as in Huckleberry Finn, written entirely in the regional vernacular of a teenager from the backwoods of Missouri. Philbertdelamorgue remembers the passage where Huck relates a conversation between two pesky conmen: “Hain’t we got all the fools in town on our side? And ain’t that a big enough majority in any town?”
A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess, 1962
As recommended by: NewZealandTown and enuffrope
An accomplished parody by NewZealandTown draws attention to an important ommission: “Viddy this bezoomy list. Why if only it included a real horrorshow novel, I’d be creeching from the roof.” The masterful linguistic inventions in A Clockwork Orange created a unique list of quotable phrases that saw almost excessive take-up in the 70s and 80s. From “droogs” to “horrorshow” to “o my brothers”, the slurs of Alex and his friends have been kicked around and printed on to T-shirts for as long as most of us can remember.
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde, 1890
As recommended by: jamesdrodger, jez37med, Adamastor and alfieburgh
His only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray is more sobering than Oscar Wilde’s other works. The hubristic decline of the novel’s hero casts a mournful shadow over Wilde’s writing, which instead becomes the source of near-proverbial truth-telling: “to define is to limit”; “nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing”. Jamesdrodger remembers a horribly ironic quote from one of Dorian’s ardent admirers: “The curves of your lips rewrite history”.
The Princess Bride
William Goldman, 1973
As recommended by: JackSlater and munquinight
JackSlater and munquinight both nominate the same quote from fantasy novel The Princess Bride: “Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.” The book’s no-nonsense tone has been a hit with teenagers and adults, and it has inspired a film, orchestral suite and computer game. Last year it was even turned into a board game, The Princess Bride Prepare To Die!. In it players pick cards to construct sentences that mimic Montoya’s line above (eg. “Hello, my name is James Blunt. You dissed my upbringing. Prepare to die”).
Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy, 1877
As recommended by: NorthUist77
Tolstoy’s weighty exploration of familial love charts the imaginative withdrawal of an aristocratic woman faced with unbearable pain and loss. Anna’s isolation produces philosophical reflections that are often quoted as universal wisdom, but work best when taken in context. NorthUist77 remembers the novel’s famous opening line: “All happy familes are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Harry Potter
JK Rowling, 1997 - 2007
As recommended by: ArtemisiaB
It is difficult to underestimate the quotability of the Harry Potter books, which have produced unforgettable spells, immortal characters and plenty of healthy truisms. ArtemisiaB recommends one of the latter: “It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
On the Road
Jack Kerouac, 1957
As recommended by: Kerocusack
One of the single most quoted lines from a novel, and the inspiration behind Katy Perry’s No 1 single Firework, this quotation from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road stands alone as a beautiful piece of writing: “The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.” Thank you to Kerocusack for pointing it out.
Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov, 1955
As recommended by: crazeecracka and Dragonluck
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita is responsible for some singly breathtaking descriptions, not least of all the famous opening line: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins.” Dragonluck selects a more comprehensive example of the tortured contradictions that produce the novel’s beauty: “Despite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and faces she made, and the vulgarity, and the danger, and the horrible hopelessness of it all, I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise – a paradise whose skies were the colour of hell-flames – but still a paradise.”
The Leopard
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, 1958
As recommended by: HouseofTiles
Not always thought of as the most quotable or succinct book, The Leopard is rightly recognised by HouseofTiles for the insightfulness of quotations we do remember – for example, “If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” As the Salina family are faced with upheaval in 19th-century Sicily, Lampedusa gives his reader plenty of bitter food for thought: “Of course, love: flames for a year, ashes for 30.”
