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[ronito]

We all like to pat ourselves on the back for how well read we are. So lets put it to the test. You know the game. Someone puts a well known quote from a book, whoever guesses it puts in another. I'll start off with something relatively easy.

"If his chest was a cannon he would have fired his heart upon it."

 

[Incognito]

moby dick

 

[iapetus]

Clearly from Jeff Smith's Bone.

 

[hobart]

Moby Dick

"Get thee to a nunnery"

Edit: Beaten... but I'm still keeping it simple.

 

[pollo]

hamlet?

Religion is the opium of the people. He believed that, that dyseptic little joint-keeper. Yes, and music is the opium of the people. Old mount-to-th-head hadn't thought of that. And now economics is the opium of the people; along with patriotism the opium of the people in Italy and Germany. What about sexual intercourse; was that an opium of the people? Of some of the people. Of some of the best of the people. But drink was a sovereign opium of the people, oh, an excellent opium. Although some prefer the radio, another opium of the people, a cheap one he had just been using. Along with these went gambling, an opium of the people if there ever was one, one of the oldest. Ambition was another, an opium of the people, along with a belief in any new form of government, always less government. Liberty, what we believed in, now the name of a MacFadden publication. We believed in that although they had not found a new name for it yet. But what was the real one? What was the real, the actual, opium of the people? He knew it very well. It was gone just a little way around the corner in that well-lighted part of his mind that was there after two or more drinks in the evening; that he knew was there (it was not really there of course). What was it? He knew very well. What was it? Of course; bread was the opium of the people. Would he remember that and would it make sense in the daylight? Bread is the opium of the people.

 

[hobart]

Try again

Edit: YOU EDITTED! Nice going on second try tho!

 

[Incognito]

oh...hrmm

"when i'm king, you'll be first against the wall."

 

[pollo]

sorry im just a big fand. screw simple

 

[Nerevar]

oh...hrmm

"when i'm king, you'll be first against the wall."

.... that's not literary ? Isn't that Radiohead?

 

[bob_arctor]

"It was a queer and sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of bein electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers--goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway.
It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.
I thought it must be the worst thing in the world."

Slightly depressing, but great.

 

[calder]

Slightly depressing, but great.

The Bell Jar. Weird I know that because I've never read the book (or any Sylvia Plath, which is odd for a Morrissey fan) but I know it as a reference to the Rosenberg trial which I've read about a fair bit.


Here's mine, a bit more obscure but as a hint it's the opening from one of my favourite old novels.

THERE were four of us - George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself,
and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room, smoking, and talking about
how bad we were - bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

We were all feeling seedy, and we were getting quite nervous about it.
Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at
times, that he hardly knew what he was doing; and then George said that
HE had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what HE was doing. With
me, it was my liver that was out of order. I knew it was my liver that
was out of order, because I had just been reading a patent liver-pill
circular, in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man
could tell when his liver was out of order. I had them all.

 

[Drinky Crow]

The fall (bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!) of a once wallstrait oldparr is retaled early in bed and later on life down through all christian minstrelsy. The great fall of the offwall entailed at such short notice the pftjschute of Finnegan, erse solid man, that the humptyhillhead of humself prumptly sends an unquiring one well to the west in quest of his tumptytumtoes: and their upturnpikepointandplace is at the knock out in the park where oranges have been laid to rust upon the green since devlinsfirst loved livvy.

Always a classic.

 

[hobart]

I think we have like... 5 unanswered right now.

 

[Drinky Crow]

I think calder's is from that Jerome K. Jerome novel, but fuck'd if I can recall the name. Actually, it's gonna bug me until I wuss out and google it.


Edit: "Three Men in a Boat". Yes, I googled it. Yes, I suck.

 

[iapetus]

Three Men in a Boat. Bonus points to anyone who can name the sequel without googling it.

 

[LakeEarth]

Three Men in a Boat. Bonus points to anyone who can name the sequel without googling it.

Three Men and a Baby?

 

[ronito]

Three men on a bummel.

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood

Drinky...hint??

 

[Ferd]

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood

dante, divine comedy

 

[iapetus]

Three men on a bummel.

 

[hobart]

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?

Such an amazing excerpt...