Entries from Bantam Classics Literary Quotation-of-the-Week tagged with 'quotations'
The Death of Ivan Ilyich
Written by Leo Tolstoy “Ivan Ilyich's life had been most simple and commonplace—and most horrifying.” —pg. 43, chapter 2 Fun Facts Leo Tolstoy wrote The Death of Ivan Ilyich shortly after he converted to Christianity. Tolstoy was plagued with... more
The Story of My Life
Written by Helen Keller “Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and anxious, groped her way toward the shore with... more
Inferno
Written by Dante Alighieri "Love, that releases no beloved from loving" —line 103, pg 45, Canto V Fun Facts Inferno is one of three 'canticas' that make up The Divine Comedy which is an allegorical poem about the Christian afterlife.... more
Candide
Written by Voltaire " 'Do you believe,' said Candide, 'that men have always slaughtered each other as they do today, that they've always been liars, cheats, traitors, ingrates and thieves, weak, fickle, cowardly, envious, greedy, drunken, miserly, ambitious, bloodthirsty, slanderous,... more
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Written by Robert Louis Stevenson "With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to the truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful... more
The Jungle
Written by Upton Sinclair "Relentless, remorseless, it was; all his protests, his screams, were nothing to it--it did its cruel will with him, as if his wishes, his feelings, had simply no existence at all; it cut his throat and... more
The Cantebury Tales
Written by Geoffrey Chaucer "Thus swyved was this carpenteris wyf, For al his kepyng and his jalousye; And Absolon hath kist hir nether ye; And Nicholas is scalded in the towte. This tale is doon, and God save al the... more
A Tale of Two Cities
Written by Charles Dickens "A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every... more
Jane Eyre
Written by Charlotte Brontë "Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from... more
The Red Badge of Courage
Written by Stephen Crane "He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part—a regiment, an army, a... more
Wuthering Heights
Written by Emily Brontë "What does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features are shaped on the flags! In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every... more
Great Expectations
Written by Charles Dickens "That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course... more
Crime and Punishment
Written by Fyodor Dostoevsky "Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery."—Part VI, Ch. 4, pg 471 Fun Facts Crime and Punishment was originally published in 1866 as a serialized novel in a literary... more
The Awakening
Written by Kate Chopin "The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of... more
The Count of Monte Cristo
Written by Alexandre Dumas There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss."—Chapter LXXII, pg. 531... more
The Metamorphosis
Written by Franz Kafka "When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."—Chapter 1, pg. 1 Fun Facts The humor of The Metamorphosis is often overlooked. When Kafka... more
Frankenstein
Written by Mary Shelley "All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell."—Chapter 24, pg. 201 Fun Facts Shelley started writing Frankenstein when she was eighteen... more
The Scarlet Letter
Written by Nathaniel Hawthorne "Ah, but let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart."—Chapter 2 Fun Facts Hawthorne attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine along with Franklin Pierce and Henry... more
Pride and Prejudice
Written by Jane Austen "I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second... more
A Christmas Carol
Written by Charles Dickens "'There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who lay claim to know us, and who do their bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our... more
Siddhartha
Written by Herman Hesse "All the voices, all the goals, all the yearnings, all the sorrows, all the pleasures, all the good and evil, all of them together was one world. All of them together was the stream of events,... more
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Written by Mark Twain "Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same—she was just that kind. She had the grit... more
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Written by James Joyce "His thinking was a dusk of doubt and self-mistrust lit up at moments by the lightnings of intuition, but lightnings of so clear a splendor that in those moments the world perished about his feet as... more
