This is a digital commonplace book, where I share some lines I've read and highlighted. (The page will be updated from time to time.)
"'Is the world filled with tigers and crocodiles?'
'Yes; and remember that two legged tigers and crocodiles are more dangerous than the others.'"
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
"Perfect nonsense goes on in the world."
― Nikolai Gogol, The Nose
"Who knows what will come when quick-tongued men make ancient grievances rhyme with fresh desire for land and conquest?"
― Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant
"Everybody rushing over everybody, in their hurry to get rich."
― Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
"It makes you wonder what the history of the world might be like if we eliminated the quest to possess."
― Zen Master Bopjong, The Sound of Water, the Sound of Wind: And Other Early Works by a Mountain Monk
"For it seems as if life and hope must cease together."
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
"Maybe in the next life we’ll meet each other for the first time—believing in everything but the harm we’re capable of."
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
"Perhaps we were friends first and lovers second. But then perhaps this is what lovers are."
― André Aciman, Call Me by Your Name
"Je me suis appuyée à la beauté du monde
Et j’ai tenu l’odeur des saisons dans mes mains."
― Anna de Noailles, Le cœur innombrable
"Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice."
― Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities
"I knew nothing but shadows and I thought them to be real."
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
"From the heart of the sweet peony, a drunken bee."
— Matsuo Basho, On Love and Barley
"I remember every wand I’ve ever sold, Mr Potter. Every single wand. It so happens that the phoenix whose tail feather is in your wand, gave another feather – just one other. It is very curious indeed that you should be destined for this wand when its brother – why, its brother gave you that scar."
― J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
"How will we ever find the sunshine, if we don't dare to go across?"
― Tove Jansson, Moomins and the Great Flood
"But you can't make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them."
― Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
"A wise bear always keeps a marmalade sandwich in his hat in case of emergency."
― Michael Bond, A Bear Called Paddington
"The time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy."
— J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
"I am very fond of sunsets. Come, let us go look at a sunset now."
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
"Life ought to be as bright as we can make it."
— Anthony Trollope, The Mistletoe Bough
"The helpless infants, the innocent children of men, have a right to be happy until they become full-grown and able to bear the trials of humanity."
— L. Frank Baum, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus