Monday, October 12, 2009

Grab-A-Line Monday


Come one, come all, folks, grab a line and pull up a seat!

Last week we had two quotes from kidlit favs, and two from the classics/soon to be classics. Oh, and there was one not-quite-quote.

Tanita waited a whole week to post on last weeks GALM:

I debated joining yearbook, too, but decided I didn't want to join a club whose sole purpose was to memorialize the awkwardness of our lives, and joined the Volunteer Society and the French Club instead."

-Sheba Karim, Skunk Girl

Nandini didn't even have to tell us which character said the following:
"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making," he began. ....... "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses ... I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death--if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach"


Lady Glamis asked this question from Crime and Punishment:

"What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky

And Annie Louden gave us these lines from Gilead

Their grim old crooked-tailed mother found us baptizing away by the creek and began carrying her babies off by the napes of their necks, one and then another. We lost track of which was which, but we were fairly sure that some of the creatures had been borne away still in the darkness of paganism, and that worried us a good deal.

Marilynne Robinson

The not-quite-quote was a great simile about a woman who fell on the floor crying supplied by Davin who insisted that we had to be there.

Mine is more than one line. But the passage describes something that most of us have experienced in such a recognizable way. This scene takes place at a doctor's office when he is about to talk to the patient and her husband about the disease and diagnosis:

At least he put down his pen but still was disinclined to speak, giving the earnest impression of not knowing where to begin or how. There was something studied about this hesitancy, something theartical. Again, I understand. A doctor musit be as good an actor as physicians.

John Banville, THE SEA

What caught you this week?

4 comments:

MG Higgins said...

If you're looking for another tween book for your daughter, DANI NOIR by Nova Ren Suma is wonderful. Akin in voice to UMBRELLA SUMMER and SOLVING ZOE and very funny. I struggle with making physical reactions unique (you know, butterflies in the stomach, chill up the spine) and she has some good ones, like:

"A faint reaction bubbles up inside my chest. Some weird cagey feeling like I caught some living thing in there, and now it's knocking around to get out."

Yat-Yee said...

Thanks for the recommendation. I love to read MG as much as my daughter does, I think! She's going to leave me behind very soon...

Some living thing knocking around inside to get out. I can feel that for sure.

Michelle D. Argyle said...

Yay for lines!

Here's mine for today:

When life offers you a dream so far beyond any of your expectations, it’s not reasonable to grieve when it comes to an end.
Bella Swan, Twilight, Preface, p.1

Yes, I just quoted Twilight. Forgive me. :)

Yat-Yee said...

Hehe. No forgiveness required. Quote away! The attitude is a good one. Sounds better when I yell at myself: you've had it good, now snap out of this funk NOW!

Great new pic!