Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This feature was created because they are particularly fond of lists at The Broke and the Bookish. They’d love to share their lists with other bookish folks and would LOVE to see your top ten lists!

This weeks Top Ten topic is:

Top Ten Favorite Quotes From Books

Because I don’t really think about quotes in books I particularly love, I am going to tweak the topic a little bit and instead do:

Ten Quotes From Books I Love

The quotes are given in no particular order. I’ve tried to make sure that none of the quotes constitute as spoilers, so even if you haven’t read any of the books all my quotes should* be safe to read.

*I hedge, because life doesn’t come with guarantees, but I’ve tried hard not to include spoilers.

‘I like the cover,’ he said. ‘Don’t Panic. It’s the first helpful or intelligible thing anybody’s said to me all day.’

– Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: A Trilogy in Five Parts (William Heinemann, 1995), p. 47.

I’ve watched the film, read all five books (I think) and heard the BBC radio play (well, some of it). I think this is a brilliantly funny series. There’s nothing quite like it.

Sabriel followed Mogget’s instructions, then watched with resigned condescension that rapidly changed to surprise as the cat crouched by the square of paper, his strange shadow falling on it like a dark cloak thrown across sand, pink tongue out in concentration. Moggest seemed to think for a moment, then one  bright ivory claw shot out from a white pad – he delicately inked the claw in the inkwell and began to draw.

– Garth Nix, Sabriel (Collins, 2003), p. 121.

Mogget is an awesome secondary character. I like his cunning and cleverness and wit.

She began to walk forward, crunch-crunch over the snow and through the wood towards the other light. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamp-post. As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood [. . .]

– C. S. Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Collins, 1980), pp. 13-14.

I fell in love with this series as a child, and I still have a soft spot for it. I know a lot of people don’t like it because of the ‘obvious’ Christianity in it, but to be honest it’s never bothered me. And I think Lewis expresses some interesting ideas within the chronicles.

All of it sometimes seemed to be happening to someone else, someone she was still getting to know. Never in a million years would she have considered the idea that a sleepy beach town somewhere in the South would have been filled with so much more . . .

– Nicholas Sparks, The Last Song (Sphere, 2010), p. 294.

I saw the film before I ever read the book, and I just fell in love. There were certain scenes in the narrative that I related to, and I like going back and re-reading it. I also like the idea that the film existed before the book.

Life at The Burrow was as different as possible from life in Privet Drive. The Dursleys liked everything neat and ordered; the Weasley’s house burst with the strange and unexpected.

– J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Bloomsbury, 1998), p. 37.

What sort of list would this be if I didn’t include a Harry Potter book, in some form. There’s just something about the Boy Wizard that really appeals me to me in the early books – not so much in the later ones. Harry gets to visit (and eventually live) in a world as a child I would have liked to have inhabited – I’d like to stop in for a visit even now. I like the contrast between Harry’s two ‘families’, and also his two worlds that this quote highlights.

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you plan on joining the Players, then?” he asked mildly. “Take up dancing, or some such thing?”

Aly dropped her pretence and removed her veil, the embroidered cloth band that held it in place, and her wimple. Her hair, once revealed, was not its normal shade of reddish blonde, but a deep, pure sapphire hue.

George looked at her. His mouth twitched.

“I know,” she said, shamefaced. “Forest green and blue go ill together.”

– Tamora Pierce, Trickster’s Choice (Scholastic Children’s books, 2003), p. 5.

I had to include Tamora Pierce’s work in this list. She creates such vivid worlds, and brilliant characters.

The forest was hidden under a fog. It was like looking down to a sloping cloud-roof from above. There was a fold or channel where the mist was broken into many plumes and billows; the valley of Withywindle. The stream ran down the hill on the left and vanished into the white shadows.

– J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (HarperCollins, 1995), p. 126.

Tolkien’s use of language is, at times, utterly brilliant. So, I had to include a passage from his book in this meme. The trouble was, most of my favourite scenes are somewhat spoiler-ish, so I couldn’t include them. However, I think this exerpt gives a little taste.

“We have a serious problem,” Mae told him, now looking angry rather than appreciative.

Nick came in, idly swinging his sword, and took a seat on the other end of the sofa. “I’m sorry to hear that,” he said. “And I’m still hungry.”

“I’m sorry about him,” Alan put in, glaring. “He get’s cranky.”

Nick raised his eyebrows. “I’m only cranky when I’m not fed.”

– Sarah Rees Brennan, The Demon’s Lexicon (Simon and Schuster, 2009), p. 18.

Sarah Rees Brennan writes some of the funniest lines, and I like how she writes her characters. I’m sad that this series is finished, but looking forward to starting her next one.

On the way to the car, Phillip turns to me. “How could you be so stupid?”

I shrug, stung in spite of myself. “I thought I grew out of it.”

Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid.

“I hope you mean sleepwalking,” Philip says, “since you obviously didn’t grow out of stupid.”

– Holly Black, White Cat (Gollancz, 2011), p. 31.

Reading Holly Black makes me smile. I also like the way she looks a the world. I particularly love her world in The Curse Workers.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

– Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 1.

How could I not include this opening line?

So, that was my Ten Quotes From Books I Love. What are yours?