"So long and thanks...for all the fish!"
— Douglas Adams

"Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore'."
— Edgar Allan Poe

"Call Me Ishmael"
— Herman Melville (Moby Dick)

"Elementary, my dear Watson.
-Sherlock Holmes"
— Arthur Conan Doyle

"We learn from failure, not from success!"
— Bram Stoker (Dracula)

"This man belongs to me, I want him!"
— Bram Stoker (Dracula)

"Despair has its own calms"
— Bram Stoker (Dracula)

"Be not afraid of greatness. Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust upon them."
— William Shakespeare (Twelfth Night)

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind."
— William Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)

"Lord, what fools these mortals be!"
— William Shakespeare

"We know what we are, but not what we may be."
— William Shakespeare

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands,
organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same
food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases,
heal'd by the same means, warm'd and cool'd by the same winter
and summer, as a Christian is?

If you prick us, do we not bleed? If
you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?
And if you wrong us, do we not revenge? If we are like you in the
rest, we will resemble you in that.
- (Act III, Scene I)"
— William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)

"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"Humans think they are smarter than dolphins because we build cars and buildings and start wars etc...and all that dolphins do is swim in the water, eat fish and play around. Dolphins believe that they are smarter for exactly the same reasons."
— Douglas Adams

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened."
— Douglas Adams (The Restaurant at the End of the Universe)

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
— Douglas Adams

"Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?"
— Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
— Douglas Adams

"It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue."
— Stephen Fry

"My first words, as I was being born... I looked up at my mother and said, "that's the last time I'm going up one of those."
— Stephen Fry

"Choking with dry tears and raging, raging, raging at the absolute indifference of nature and the world to the death of love, the death of hope and the death of beauty, I remember sitting on the end of my bed, collecting these pills and capsules together and wondering why, why when I felt I had so much to offer, so much love, such outpourings of love and energy to spend on the world, I was incapable of being offered love, giving it or summoning the energy with which I knew I could transform myself and everything around me."
— Stephen Fry (Moab Is My Washpot)

"... literary studies were no more than a series of autopsies performed by heartless technicians. Worse than autopsies: biopsies. Vivisection. Even movies, which I love more than anything, more than life itself, they even do it with movies these days."
— Stephen Fry (Making History)

"I think it was Donald Mainstock, the great amateur
squash player who pointed out how lovely I was. Until
that time I think it was safe to say that I had never
really been aware of my own timeless brand of
loveliness. But his words smote me, because of course
you see, I am lovely in a fluffy moist kind of way and
who would have it otherwise?
I walk, and let’s be splendid about this, in a highly
accented cloud of gorgeousness that isn’t far short of
being, quite simply terrific.
The secret of smooth almost shiny loveliness, of the
order of which we are discussing, in this simple,
frank, creamy sort of way, doesn’t reside in oils,
unguents, balms, ointments, creams, astringents,
milks, moisturisers, liniments, lubricants,
embrocations or balsams, to be rather divine for just
one noble moment, it resides, and I mean this in a
pink slightly special way, in ones attitude of mind.
To be gorgeous, and high and true and fine and fluffy
and moist and sticky and lovely, all you have to do is
believe that one is gorgeous and high and true and
fine and fluffy and moist and sticky and lovely.
And I believe it of myself, tremulously at first and
then with rousing heat and passion, because, stopping
off for a second to be super again, I’m so often told
it.
That’s the secret really."
— Stephen Fry - A Bit of Fry and Laurie

"I flicked my eyes over to Steve again and saw him straighten. He would need a diversion just to start.

“Explanations?” I bellowed. “Explanations? There’s your explanation…there!” I stabbed a finger dramatically towards the far corner of the room.

Pathetic, really. I mean, talk about the oldest trick in the book. But it’s a good book, and the trick would have been cut from subsequent editions if it didn’t sometimes work."
— Stephen Fry (Making History)

"Happiness is the twinkle in your grandmother's eye as you reverse the tractor off her legs."
— Hugh Laurie

"This was the tricky bit. The really tricky bit, trickiness cubed"
— Hugh Laurie (The Gun Seller)

"Never trust anyone who has not brought a book with them."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict."
— Lemony Snicket (The Grim Grotto)

"Everyone should be able to do one card trick, tell two jokes, and recite three poems, in case they are ever trapped in an elevator."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness."
— Lemony Snicket

"No matter who you are, no matter where you live, and no matter how many people are chasing you, what you don't read is often as important as what you do read."
— Lemony Snicket

"A good library will never be too neat or too dusty, because somebody will always be in it, taking books off the shelves and staying up late reading them."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"Taking one’s chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck."
— Lemony Snicket

"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another."
— Lemony Snicket

"Well-read people are less likely to be criminals."
— Lemony Snicket

"If writers wrote as carelessly as some people talk, then adhasdh asdglaseuyt[bn[ pasdlgkhasdfasdf."
— Lemony Snicket (Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid)

"The moral of Snow White is never eat apples."
— Lemony Snicket

"Strange as it may seem, I still hope for the best, even though the best, like an interesting piece of mail, so rarely arrives, and even when it does it can be lost so easily."
— Lemony Snicket (The Beatrice Letters)

"Of course you can. I'm not questioning your powers of observation I'm merely remarking upon the paradox of asking a masked man who he is."
— V.

"Behind this mask there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask there is an idea... and ideas are bulletproof."
— Alan Moore (V for Vendetta)

"You're the one who is weak. You will never know love or friendship. And I feel sorry for you."
— J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix)

"When you can live forever what do you live for?"
— Stephenie Meyer

"Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
— Arthur Conan Doyle

"Evil indeed is the man who has not one woman to mourn him. - Sherlock Holmes."
— Arthur Conan Doyle (The Hound of the Baskervilles)

"The larger crimes are apt to be the simpler, for the bigger the crime, the more obvious, as a rule, is the motive."
— Arthur Conan Doyle

"It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own."
— Arthur Conan Doyle

"The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."
— Arthur Conan Doyle

"What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done."
— Arthur Conan Doyle

"So tomorrow we disappear into the unknown. This account I am transmitting down the river by canoe, and it may be our last word to those who are interested in our fate."
— Arthur Conan Doyle (The Lost World)