Penner > Penner's Quotes

“...Look at this thing,” he said. “He’s the size of that fucking dog.”
“She,” said Henry, continuing to watch the Herk family through the window.
“She?” asked Leonard. “She what?”
“The mosquito,” said Henry. “It’s a she.”
Leonard looked closely at the blot on his wrist, then back at Henry. “How the fuck can you tell that?” he asked.
“This show on the Discovery Channel,” explained Henry. “They said only the female mosquito sucks your blood.”
Leonard looked at the blot again. He said, “Bitch.”
― Dave Barry, Big Trouble

“...wonder what I would say at his funeral if someone gave me a dose of Pentothal an hour before the services.”
(chap. 10)”
― Richard Bachman, Thinner

“Gimli Glóin’s son, have you your axe ready?’ ‘Nay, lord,’ said Gimli, ‘but I can speedily fetch it, if there be need.’ ‘You shall judge,’ said Éomer. ‘For there are certain rash words concerning the Lady in the Golden Wood that lie still between us. And now I have seen her with my eyes.’ ‘Well, lord,’ said Gimli, ‘and what say you now?’ ‘Alas!’ said Éomer. ‘I will not say that she is the fairest lady that lives.’ ‘Then I must go for my axe,’ said Gimli.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

“Here. All of you. And you, doorkeeper. No one is to be let out of the house today. And anyone I catch talking about this young lady will be first beaten to death and then burned alive and after that be kept on bread and water for six weeks. There.”
― C.S. Lewis, O cavalo e o seu rapaz

“Aziz, may I have a drink?”
“Certainly not!” He flew to get one.”
― E.M. Forster, A Passage to India

“Did you ever ask yourself the question,” Lady Muriel began, à propos of nothing, “what is the chief advantage of being a Man instead of a Dog?”
“No, indeed,” I said: “but I think there are advantages on the Dog’s side of the question, as well.”
“No doubt,” she replied, with that pretty mock-gravity that became her so well: “but, on Man’s side, the chief advantage seems to me to consist in having pockets!”
― Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

“Do you know, I verily believe she is un petit peu amoureuse du jeune homme?”
“Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!”
“But how could I say that in Russian?”
― Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

“Everybody is crazy,” Saul said patiently, “if you don’t understand his motives.” He held up his tie. “Imagine you arrive in a flying saucer from Mars — or from Vulcan, like the Illuminati did according to one of our allegedly reliable sources. You see me get up this morning and for no clear reason wrap this cloth around my neck, in spite of the heat. What explanation can you think of? I’m a fetishist — a nut, in other words.”
― Robert Shea, The Illuminatus! Trilogy

“I used to think until you're eighteen nothing matters," said Mary. "That's right," Abe agreed. "And afterward it's the same way.”
― Anonymous

“I would not tell them too much," said Holmes. "Women are never to be entirely trusted,—not the best of them." I did not pause to argue over this atrocious sentiment. "I”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four

“If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.”
― Lewis Caroll, Alice in Wonderland

“If you do not capitulate to me here, I will exterminate you and all you have ever loved as easily as I exterminate rats!”
At that, King Joyse looked over at Prince Kragen. Mock-seriously, he said, “Come, my lord Prince. This discussion is pointless. The High King insists on jesting with us. In all the world, no one has ever succeeded at exterminating rats.”
― Stephen R. Donaldson, Mordant's Need

“I’m a big girl.”
“Honey,” he said, “you ain’t no bigger than a minute.”
She sighed. “Sometimes a minute can be a mighty powerful thing.”
― James Baldwin, Another Country

“In Enlad," said Arren after a while, "we have a story about the boy whose schoolmaster
was a stone:'
"Aye?... What did he learn?"
"Not to ask questions.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore

“Mother Mary, this is not what was meant to be.”
“Nothing ever is, Doc. I learned that long ago.”
“Ha! You’re too young.”
“Depends how you fill the years, doesn’t it?”
― Peter F. Hamilton, The Neutronium Alchemist 2: Conflict

“No, he hasn’t a head for Arithmetic—”
“Course I haven’t!” said Bruno. “Mine head’s for hair. I haven’t got a lot of heads!”
“—and he ca’n’t learn his Multiplication-table—”
“I like History ever so much better,” Bruno remarked. “Oo has to repeat that Muddlecome table—”
“Well, and you have to repeat—”
“No, oo hasn’t!” Bruno interrupted. “History repeats itself. The Professor said so!”
― Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

“Oh, darling,” she said. “You will be good to me, won’t you?”
What the hell, I thought.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“I think we’d had enough of this folly. Who ever heard of a door-mat TELLING anyone anything? They simply don’t do it. They are not that sort at all. Door-mats know their place.”
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

“That is another of your odd notions," said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling every thing "odd" that was beyond his comprehension, and thus lived amid an absolute legion of "oddities.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Purloined Letter

“The idea is that a beard makes it easy to cut a man’s throat. You grab it and jerk his head up.”
“I see,” Silk said. Mentally, he cancelled the beard he had only just resolved to grow.”
― Gene Wolfe, Exodus from the Long Sun

“Therefore you don’t have a single answer to your questions?” “Adso, if I did I would teach theology in Paris.” “In Paris do they always have the true answer?” “Never,” William said, “but they are very sure of their errors.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name Of The Rose

“We have got to the deductions and the inferences,” said Lestrade, winking at me. “I find it hard enough to tackle facts, Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies.”
“You are right,” said Holmes demurely; “you do find it very hard to tackle the facts.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story

“The Massalians are not dualists but monarchians, and they have dealings with the infernal powers, and in fact some texts call them Borborites, from borboros, filth, because of the unspeakable things they do."

"What do they do?"

"The usual unspeakable things. Men and women hold in the palm of their hand, and raise to heaven, their own ignominy, namely, sperm or menstruum, then eat it, calling it the Body of Christ. And if by chance a woman is made pregnant, at the opportune moment they stick a hand into her womb, pull out the embryo, throw it into a mortar, mix in some honey and pepper, and gobble it up."

"How revolting, honey and pepper!" Diotallevi said.”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

“What kind of deal? How did this come up? How did you cast it?” I pressed.
“He knows about the company. He’s into it. He’s pissed off that you’ve been getting the runaround. He says the entire AOL organization is super fucked up. But he said he’ll do it, personally. He’ll shepherd it. If we can put a deal together, he guarantees he’ll get it done. He’s ready. He’ll come into the office and do it. So let’s do it. Let’s set it up. Now!”
“Okay. Great. Yes. Wow. What else did he say?”
“He said he’s got his coke problem under control, and now he’s workng on his fidelity issues.”
― Michael Wolff

“What part of a man is it best to shoot at?” asked Sean.
“His horse,” said Jake.”
― Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass

“When you’re older,” said the Professor, “you’ll know that you can’t put Mountains together again so easily!”
― Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded

“Why can’t people just learn to live together in peace and harmony?” said Arthur.
Ford gave a loud, very hollow laugh.
“Forty-two!” he said with a malicious grin. “No, doesn’t work. Never mind.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

“...anyone with a secretary knows that what Catullus really wrote was already corrupt by the time it was copied twice...”
― Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

“If you want to really relax sometime, just fall to rock bottom and you'll be a happy man. Most all troubles come from having standards.”
― Thomas Berger, Little Big Man