/lit/ - Literature

Having said A, we should say B. Last week we covered the Bible; today it's the Bard. One hundred examples of people (overtly or covertly) quoting Shakespeare. Your job is to identify and give the relevant lines.

A small number of extracts quote more than one passage (or could be tied to two or more similar passages).

I'm drawing from a wide range of fringe authors & genres — non-fiction, popular trash, foreigners, women and so on — so trigger warning, I suppose.

The quiz covers about three-quarters of Shakespeare's oeuvre (twenty-seven of the plays and three sonnets, unless I missed something). One work set in Denmark is represented disproportionately. That's hard to avoid — not only is H****t longer than the other plays, it's constructed entirely of famous quotations stitched nose-to-tail. Don't blame me; I didn't make the rules.

Hints on request.

Question 1: How many plays did Shakespeare write? The answer might surprise you

1)
I was getting into my car, and this man says to me "Can you give me a lift?" I said, "Sure. You look great. The world's your oyster. Go for it."

— Stephen Arnott, 'Man Walks Into A Bar: The Ultimate Collection Of Jokes And One-Liners'


2)
Doctors are, of course, only human, however much they may sometimes try to present themselves as being above the earthly fray, or human weakness and pettiness. If you prick them do they not bleed, if you tickle them do they not laugh? And are they not prey to the same vanities and ambition for distinction as other men?

— Theodore Dalrymple, 'Romancing Opiates: Pharmacological Lies And The Addiction Bureaucracy'


3)
The thermometer nailed to a post reads 110°F., but in the shade, with a breeze and almost no humidity, such a temperature is comfortable, even pleasant. I sit down at the table, pull off my boots and socks, dig my toes into the gritty, cleansing sand. Fear no more the heat of the sun. This is comfort. More, this is bliss, pure smug animal satisfaction. I relax beneath the sheltering canopy of juniper boughs and gaze out squinting and blinking at a pink world being sunburned to death.

— Edward Abbey, 'Desert Solitaire'


4)
“I am the spectre of the late
Sir Roderic Murgatroyd,
Who comes to warn thee that thy fate
Thou canst not now avoid.”

“Alas, poor ghost!”

— W. S. Gilbert, 'Ruddigore'


5)
The barman had one of those old, fanatically grizzled druggie faces, and his dull eyes did not regard us at all sympathetically. I couldn't take issue with him because my gullet was clogged with gag-inducing mushrooms, which I was trying to swill down with the remaining drops of water from Dazed’s bottle of Evian, but evidently the three of us collectively registered sufficient surprise to generate some kind of explanation from the barman.

“I don’t want you puking,” he said.

“Several things,” said Amsterdam Dave, who had succeeded in swallowing his mushrooms. “First, at my age, I do not need lessons in how to behave. I am a very civic-minded person. Second, my friends and I have a combined age of almost a hundred and fifteen years and we have, I think it’s fair to say, no intention of throwing up. Third, if we do feel like throwing up, we'll make sure we step either outside or into the toilet. Fourth, if we are going to throw up it’s not going to happen for at least half an hour. In the meantime perhaps you would be so good as to bring us three coffees.”

It was an extremely impressive speech, and for a moment I thought the barman was going to oblige. Then, with no alteration of expression, he clicked his fingers, pointed to the door, and uttered two words. The first was “Asshole!” The second was “Out!”

“There is a world elsewhere,” I said to him with all the dignity I could muster — almost none — as we headed for the door.

— Geoff Dyer, 'Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It'

6)
Who can describe what drugs, what charms, what conjuration and what mighty magic those packages contained? They were indeed miracles of rare device. Some included, infused with the liver and offal, stimulants able to banish sleep, or to cause the consumer to perform, on the morrow, prodigies of endurance — to fight, to fast, to tear himself, to drink up eisel, eat a crocodile. Others contained paralytics which suspended colour perception, hearing, taste, smell; analgesics destroying the power to feel pain, so that the subject stood wagging his tail while a hot iron was drawn along his ribs; hallucinogenics able to fill the eye of the beholder with more devils than vast hell can hold, to transform the strong to weaklings, the resolute to cowards, to plunge the intelligent and alert head over ears into idiocy.

— Richard Adams, 'The Plague Dogs'


7)
“In Heaven’s name,” cried I, “can you find no reputable life on shore?”

“O, no,” says he, winking and looking very sly, “they would put me to a trade. I know a trick worth two of that, I do!”

— R. L. Stevenson, 'Kidnapped'


8)
The spacecraft will make several revolutions in this parking orbit while the crew prepares for the descent — and, of course, admires the staggering view of the lunar landscape only 80 miles away. Then the two men chosen to make the landing will transfer to the LM; well may they wonder, in that tense moment, "When shall we three meet again?"

— Arthur C. Clarke, 'The Promise Of Space'


9)
When I swung back I swayed slightly, closed my eyes, opened them again, lifted my drink and looked at the cocktail napkin. “Yes. Of course. The Annex. I have been in a great many places this evening, Albert. I have talked with many many many people. Few of them had understanding. They cannot comprehend the tragic trauma of our times. Someone suggested I return here. I have forgotten who. Perhaps I was misled. A rather large fellow, as I remember. The evening blurs. That is what happens to evenings. They all blur, merge, become meaningless. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Albert, I know you have understanding. You have proven that. But do you have tolerance for the mistakes of others?”

— John D. Macdonald, 'Darker Than Amber'


10)
Virtue, good angel, is its own reward:
Your dollars were well spent.
But would you to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediment?

— Robert Graves, 'Beauty In Trouble'

11)
"My mother is thinking of getting married."

"Again!"

"It's the first time."

"Of course, you ought to know. I was under the impression that she'd been married once or twice at least."

"Three times, to be mathematically exact. I meant that it was the first time she'd thought about getting married; the other times she did it without thinking. As a matter of fact, it's really I who am doing the thinking for her in this case. You see, it's quite two years since her last husband died."

"You evidently think that brevity is the soul of widowhood."

"Well, it struck me that she was getting moped, and beginning to settle down, which wouldn't suit her a bit. The first symptom that I noticed was when she began to complain that we were living beyond our income. All decent people live beyond their incomes nowadays, and those who aren't respectable live beyond other peoples. A few gifted individuals manage to do both."

— Saki, 'The Match-Maker'


12)
Some days 'confined to camp’ he got,
For being 'dirty on parade’.
He told me, afterwards, the damnèd spot
Was blood, his own. ‘Well, blood is dirt,’ I said.

— Wilfred Owen, 'Inspection'


13)
On the contrary that stab in the back touch was quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the fish way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in little Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to have a good old succulent tuckin with garlic de rigueur off him or her next day on the quiet and, he added, on the cheap.

— James Joyce, 'Ulysses'


14)
Walk boldly, talk loudly of exploits at boxing, wrestling, judo, brawling and rugby. Recall past successes, real or imaginary. Adopt a general air of bravado. Remember that Napoleon said the moral is to the physical as three is to one. Let boldness be your friend.

— Michael Green, 'The Art Of Coarse Rugby'


15)
General Lord Rufus D'Ascoyne, on the other hand, who never tired of demonstrating how he had fought the most calamitous campaign of the South African War, was a fairly easy proposition. It seemed appropriate that he who had lived amidst the cannon's roar should die explosively. I therefore concealed in a pot of caviar a simple but powerful homemade bomb; and through the post, I sent the caviar to the general.

— Robert Hamer & John Dighton & Nancy Mitford, 'Kind Hearts And Coronets' (Screenplay)

16)
“Have you ever been in love?”

“Of course, my dear boy. Madly. But never for very long. I could only be in love with a young chap, but the trouble with them is jealousy, and I won’t have that. At the very first sign of jealousy I say, ‘Thank you very much, nice to have known you.’ You might fall in love with me, Alfred, and I’d like that. But beware the green-eyed monster.”

— John O'Hara, ‘From The Terrace’


17)
When I showed the manager of this hotel the official Hotel Guide and the pledge, and his rates, he smiled pleasantly and said to pay no attention to that book — it was just the official government Hotel Guide, full of rates and pledges, signifying nothing. Let us go back again to Michelin, which pledges you no pledges.

— James Thurber, 'La Fleur Des Guides Francais'


18)
We are concerned here merely with the multiple sources of the witty element, not with the complete joke. An example is a story told of Dean Briggs of Harvard. The Dean was speaking at a dinner on an uncomfortably hot evening. The chairs had recently been varnished, and when the Dean rose to speak, he found his coat stuck to the chair. There was a good deal of laughter as he pulled it loose. When he was at last able to speak, he began, "I had expected to deliver to you a round unvarnished tale, but circumstances make it impossible to fulfill my expectations."

— B. F. Skinner, 'Science And Human Behaviour'


19)
. . . . Have I not thought o’ermuch
Of other men, and of the ways of the world?
But what they are, or have been, matters not.
To thine own self be true, the wise man says.
Are then my fears myself? O double self!
And I untrue to both?

— Arthur Hugh Clough, 'Dipsychus'


20)
There are various ways of flattering, and, of course, you must adapt your style to your subject. Some people like it laid on with a trowel, and this requires very little art. With sensible persons, however, it needs to be done very delicately, and more by suggestion than actual words. A good many like it wrapped up in the form of an insult, as — "Oh, you are a perfect fool, you are. You would give your last sixpence to the first hungry-looking beggar you met;" while others will swallow it only when administered through the medium of a third person, so that if C wishes to get at an A of this sort, he must confide to A's particular friend B that he thinks A a splendid fellow, and beg him, B, not to mention it, especially to A. Be careful that B is a reliable man, though, otherwise he won't.

— Jerome K. Jerome, 'Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow'

21)
George was so new to feeling anger that he did not know against whom to direct it — Campbell, Parsons, Anson, the police solicitor, the magistrates? Well, the magistrates would do for a start. Meek said they were certain to commit — as if they had no mental capacity, as if they were glove puppets or automata. But then, what were magistrates anyway? They scarcely qualified as members of the legal profession. Most were just self-important amateurs dressed in a little brief authority.

He felt thrilled by his contemptuous words, and then immediate shame at his own excitement. This was why wrath was a sin: it led to untruth. The magistrates at Cannock were doubtless no better and no worse than magistrates anywhere else; nor could he remember them uttering a word from which he could fairly dissent.

— Julian Barnes, 'Arthur And George'


22)
The Ostrich Succession. Exit Pursued by a Turkey.
In the Pound. The Artist’s Life. On the Beautiful Blue Danube.
Less Is Roar. The Bicyclist. The Father.

— John Ashbery, 'Title Search'


23)
A little touch of Flashy in the night goes a long way with some women; then again, there are those who can’t wait to play another fixture, and so ad infinitum. I suppose I should be grateful that Szu-Zhan the bandit was one of the latter, since this ensured my safety and also gave me some of the finest rough riding I remember; on the other hand, the way she spun out that journey to Nanking, over another three days and tempestuous nights, it looked long odds that I’d have to be carried the last few miles.

— George MacDonald Fraser, 'Flashman And The Dragon'


24)
. . . the American chair maintains through the ages its bad eminence as an instrument of torture. Time can not wither nor custom stale its infinite malevolence.

— Ambrose Bierce, 'The American Chair'


25)
Zero hour. Tension mounting. A Lance Bombardier was arrested for sneezing. A Jewish gunner fainted on religious grounds. Lieutenant Budden was stung by a bee; lashing out with his hand, he struck Captain Martin’s pipe, driving the stem down his throat, leaving just the bow! protruding from his lips and fumigating his nose. Disaster! Sergeant Dawson, A.I. of Signals, reported the line to the gun position had got a break. Signallers Devine and White, who would do anything for a break, set off. In the haste to defend the Sceptered Isle, the South Coast was a mass of hurriedly-laid, unlabelled telephone lines, along walls, down drains, up men’s trouser legs, everywhere!

— Spike Milligan, 'Adolf Hitler: My Part In His Downfall'

26)
“My dear,” said Sir Condy, “there’s nothing for it but to walk, or to let me carry you as far as the house, for you see the back road is too narrow for a carriage, and the great piers have tumbled down across the front approach: so there’s no driving the right way, by reason of the ruins.”

“Plato, thou reasonest well,” said she, or words to that effect, which I could noways understand; and again, when her foot stumbled against a broken bit of a car-wheel, she cried out, “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” Well, thought I, to be sure, if she’s no Jewish, like the last, she is a mad-woman for certain, which is as bad: it would have been as well for my poor master to have taken up with poor Judy, who is in her right mind anyhow.

— Maria Edgeworth, 'Castle Rackrent'


27)
The Universe - some information to help you live in it.

[...]

6. Art: None.
The function of art is to hold the mirror up to nature, and there simply isn't a mirror big enough — see point one.

— Douglas Adams, 'The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe'


28)
In one room, after three passes and a weak no-trump from South, North transferred to spades and the Welsh were happy to score 110. There was more excitement in the other room.

East opened in third position with one diamond, and a bidding misunderstanding propelled the Scots into a hazardous no-trump game. But the play’s the thing.

Hamilton attacked in hearts and Shenkin held up the ace until the third round...

— H. W. Kelsey, 'Bridge For The Connoisseur'


29)
'To The Manor Born'

— BBC TV Series


30)
However, nothing further had been heard of Damerel. He had not come north for York Races this year, and, unless he meant to come later for the pheasant-shooting, which (from the neglected state of his preserves) seemed unlikely, the North Riding might consider itself free from his contaminating presence for another year. It came, therefore, as a surprise to Venetia, serenely filling her basket with his blackberries, when she discovered that he was much nearer at hand than anyone had supposed. She had been making her way round the outskirts of the wood, and had paused to disentangle her dress from a particularly clinging trail of bramble when an amused voice said: “Oh, how full of briars is this working-day world!”

— Georgette Heyer, 'Venetia'

31)
“Oh, Ma, *no!* Do we have to move to town again?” Laura cried.

“Modulate your voice, Laura,” Ma said gently. “Remember, ‘Her voice was ever gentle, low, and soft, an excellent thing in woman.’ ”

— Laura Ingalls Wilder, 'Little Town On The Prairie'


32)
My pencil, my two pencils, the one of which nothing remains between my huge fingers but the lead fallen from the wood and the other, long and round, in the bed somewhere, I was holding it in reserve, I won't look for it, I know it's there somewhere, if I have time when I've finished I'll look for it, if I don't find it I won't have it, I'll make the correction, with the other, if anything remains of it. Quiet, quiet. My exercise-book, I don't see it, but I feel it in my left hand, I don't know where it comes from, I didn't have it when I came here, but I feel it is mine. That's the style, as if I were sweet and seventy. In that case the bed would be mine too, and the little table, the dish, the pots, the cupboard, the blankets. No, nothing of all that is mine. But the exercise-book is mine, I can't explain.

— Samuel Beckett, 'Malone Dies'


33)
By the summer of 1572 the public cause of Mary Stuart seemed lost indeed; she was left to discover for herself in the private life of captivity the uses of adversity, sweet or otherwise. This outward decline in her circumstances was due in great measure to the fact that the fickle wheel of fortune had rolled away from her direction in Scotland...

— Antonia Fraser, 'Mary, Queen Of Scots'


34)
— Yow! — yeough! — yeough! — yow! — yow! yelled a hapless sufferer from beneath the table. — It was an unlucky hour for quadrupeds; and if "every dog will have his day," he could not have selected a more unpropitious one than this.

— Thomas Ingoldsby, 'The Ingoldsby Legends'


35)
I will journey on a double-decked bus to find you where I once saw you in the choked road. The summer leaves obscure the Serpentine. Only through knowledge do I divine the water beyond, as I trust in your kindness. Will you let my plant live, that was entrusted to your care? Of it you have not said a single word.

The Angel of Selfridges is not in the giving vein. Is it that we have offended?

Maculate with the black dregs of chewing gum, how grubby is the pavement all around. This is not the place.

Your address is known to me, so now in the bright day I am at your door.

— Vikram Seth, 'An Equal Music'

36)
Young men! ye “wealthy curled darlings of our nation,” who are about to “put up your money in the street,” let me whisper a word in your ear. Before you venture on this perilous step, go to Cornele or Uncle Daniel, and make them a free gift of all the money you are willing to risk, (for into their strong boxes it will come at last,) and thus you will be saved a world of wrong and trouble, entailed by that mysterious, protracted, and to you, painful process, which will surely end, finally, in the transfer of your money into the strong boxes aforesaid.

— William Worthington Fowler, 'Ten Years in Wall Street'


37)
“I'd still have liked . . . ” But he wasn't quite sure what, by now.

“Does you credit. But this is one time to imitate the action of the clam and hope that the chowder will pass us by.”

— Gavin Lyall, 'The Conduct Of Major Maxim'


38)
Feeling, therefore, that if the thing was to be smacked into, ‘twere well ‘twere smacked into quickly, as Shakespeare says, I treacled the paper and attached it to the window. All that now remained to be done was to deliver the sharp buffet. And it was at this point that I suddenly came over all cat-in-the-adage-y. The chilliness of the feet became intensified, and I began to hover, as Stilton had done outside that jeweller’s shop.

— P. G. Wodehouse, 'Joy In The Morning'


39)
There’s something phoney in the whole setup, Meg thought. There is definitely something rotten in the state of Camazotz.

— Madeleine L'Engle, 'A Wrinkle In Time'


40)
Another early favorite (for we must remember that Rebecca's only knowledge of the great world of poetry consisted of the selections in vogue in school readers) was:—

"Woodman, spare that tree!
Touch not a single bough!
In youth it sheltered me,
And I'll protect it now."

When Emma Jane Perkins walked through the "short cut" with her, the two children used to render this with appropriate dramatic action. Emma Jane always chose to be the woodman because she had nothing to do but raise on high an imaginary axe. On the one occasion when she essayed the part of the tree's romantic protector, she represented herself as feeling "so awful foolish" that she refused to undertake it again, much to the secret delight of Rebecca, who found the woodman's role much too tame for her vaulting ambition. She reveled in the impassioned appeal of the poet, and implored the ruthless woodman to be as brutal as possible with the axe, so that she might properly put greater spirit into her lines.

— Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin, 'Rebecca Of Sunnybrook Farm'

41)
I removed my eye from the viewfinder of the camera to be treated to the somewhat disturbing sight of the green mamba sliding determinedly through the legs of the tripod towards me. I leaped upwards and backwards with an airy grace that only a prima ballerina treading heavily on a tin-tack could have emulated. Immediately pandemonium broke loose. The snake slid past me and made for Sophie at considerable speed. Sophie took one look and decided that discretion was the better part of valour. Seizing her pencil, pad and, for some obscure reason, her camp stool too, she ran like a hare towards the massed ranks of the councillors. Unfortunately this was the way the snake wanted to go as well, so he followed hotly on her trail.

— Gerald Durrell, 'A Zoo In My Luggage'


42)
“Any funny business with Freddy,” Frank said, bloating with menace, “and it’s get thee to a nunnery. I'll divorce you.”

— John Updike, 'Couples'


43)
John Ritblat: ‘I think firing people is an obligation of management. I don’t think you have any choice. I mean, I don’t like it at all, but my experience is that when you bring unpleasant things to an end, it’s better for everybody. I’m a great believer in being cruel to be kind. There’s nothing worse, for instance, than employing people in the wrong slot. You know there can be no future for them and that it’s only going to go downhill...’

— Edward de Bono, 'Tactics: The Art And Science Of Success'


44)
Another noble Lord has done better, because he has done less: but some others, more or less noble, yet ‘all honourable men’, have done *best*, because, after a deal of excavation and execration, bribery to the Waywode, mining and countermining, they have done nothing at all.

— Lord Byron, Notes on 'Childe Harold'


45)
After the sweaty crowded room the hot air outside seemed almost fresh. I walked over to the car, wondering crossly what to do now. Go back, of course, that was obligatory; all I could do was salvage the day somehow and get Hamid to take me somewhere for a run. Baalbek, I supposed... I had seen Baalbek already, with the group, but it had been a crowded sort of day; perhaps if we went up the Bk’aa valley, taking it slowly, saw Baalbek again, then went back into Beirut by the road through the mountains... I could telephone Ben when I got back, there was no hurry for that, and tell him what had happened. It was disappointing, even infuriating, but it really didn’t matter.

But by the pricking of my thumbs, it did.

— Mary Stewart, 'The Gabriel Hounds'

46)
“The devil is always ready to quote scripture when it pays him to do so,” said the younger Duchess, “and they say the wretched woman’s sales are going up by leaps and bounds.”

— Dorothy L. Sayers, 'Strong Poison'


47)
'Time Out Of Joint'

— Philip K. Dick


48)
My determination was as hard as a railroad doughnut. If he had cuffed me I would not have whimpered. But when he soaked that doughnut in the milk of human kindness old obstinacy softened.

— Babe Ruth, 'Playing The Game'


49)
Now is the winner of our (discontinued on page 94)

— John Lennon, 'Skywriting By Word Of Mouth'


50)
What Parliament that ever sat under the Moon had such a series of destinies, as this National Convention of France? It came together to make the Constitution; and instead of that, it has had to make nothing but destruction and confusion: to burn up Catholicisms, Aristocratisms, to worship Reason and dig Saltpetre, to fight Titanically with itself and with the whole world. A Convention decimated by the Guillotine; above the tenth man has bowed his neck to the axe. Which has seen Carmagnoles danced before it, and patriotic strophes sung amid Church-spoils; the wounded of the Tenth of August defile in handbarrows; and, in the Pandemonial Midnight, Egalité’s dames in tricolor drink lemonade, and spectrum of Sieyes mount, saying, *Death sans phrase*. A Convention which has effervesced, and which has congealed; which has been red with rage, and also pale with rage: sitting with pistols in its pocket, drawing sword (in a moment of effervescence): now storming to the four winds, through a Danton-voice, Awake, O France, and smite the tyrants; now frozen mute under its Robespierre, and answering his dirge-voice by a dubious gasp. Assassinated, decimated; stabbed at, shot at, in baths, on streets and staircases; which has been the nucleus of Chaos. Has it not heard the chimes at midnight? It has deliberated, beset by a Hundred thousand armed men with artillery-furnaces and provision-carts. It has been betocsined, bestormed; over-flooded by black deluges of Sansculottism; and has heard the shrill cry, Bread and Soap. For, as we say, its the nucleus of Chaos; it sat as the centre of Sansculottism; and had spread its pavilion on the waste Deep, where is neither path nor landmark, neither bottom nor shore.

— Thomas Carlyle, 'The French Revolution'

51)
The cheap outfits were food only. There was progressively more, up to the sixteen-grand package, which included a Land Cruiser, clothing from thermal underwear out, machete, sleeping bag, butane stove and tank, inflatable raft, almost anything you could name. One included membership in a survival club: You were guaranteed a place if you could get there, somewhere in the Rockies. The different companies didn’t sell identical items, and none of the four included guns (courtesy of Lee Harvey Oswald; and how many people has the ban on mail-order guns saved or killed, depending on whether or not the Hammer falls?).

But all four companies sold you the same outfit whether you lived on a mountain or a seashore or the High Plains. Harvey grinned. Caveat emptor. The stuff was all overpriced, too. Lord, what fools these mortals be...

— Larry Niven, 'Lucifer's Hammer'


52)
GOLDSMITH. 'For my part, I'd tell truth, and shame the devil.'
JOHNSON. 'Yes, Sir; but the devil will be angry. I wish to shame the devil as much you do, but I should choose to be out of the reach of his claws.'

— James Boswell, 'Life Of Johnson'


53)
The Southerner is “mighty glad to see you.” He is apt to be “powerful lazy” and “powerful slow”; but if you visit him where he has located himself, he’ll “go for you to the hilt agin creation.” When people salute each other at meeting, he says they are “howdyin’ and civilizin’ each other.” He has “powerful nice corn.” The extreme of facility is not as easy as lying, but “as easy as shootin’.”

— H. L. Mencken, 'The American Language'


54)
“Well, Judge Humgruffin, what’s your verdict, sir?
You, hardest head in the United States, —
Did you detect a cheat here? Wait! Let’s see!
Just an experiment first, for candour’s sake!
I’ll try and cheat you, Judge? The table tilts:
Is it I that move it? Write! I’ll press your hand:
Cry when I push, or guide your pencil, Judge!”
Sludge still triumphant! “That a rap, indeed?
That, the real writing? Very like a whale!
Then, if, sir, you — a most distinguished man,
And, were the Judge not here, I’d say, ... no matter!
Well, sir, if you fail, you can’t take us in, —
There’s little fear that Sludge will!”

— Robert Browning, 'Mr Sludge'


55)
‘He’s enough to break his mother’s heart, is this boy,’ said Miss Wren, half appealing to Eugene. ‘I wish I had never brought him up. He’d be sharper than a serpent’s tooth, if he wasn’t as dull as ditch water. Look at him. There’s a pretty object for a parent’s eyes!’

— Charles Dickens, 'Our Mutual Friend'

56)
Leaving everything else out, there is no doubt women are virtuosos in the deceit department. You go out for an honest day's work, and she gives you a big fat kiss, and you come home and all the furniture is moved out of the house, and your bank accounts and wages are attached, and there are various useful little legal papers served. And you had thought things had been rather better in recent days than usual.

Because of this female cunning, it is strikingly easy to end up with a second-rate number, after having firmly convinced yourself she was a damsel of the first water. There is nothing worse, I can tell you, than residing for any period of time with a second-rate woman. Jail looks good.

But when you find the real thing, grapple her to your heart with hoops of steel. Deceit and all.

— Charles McCabe, 'Tall Girls Are Grateful'


57)
Keevin chuckled. ‘*In vino veritas*,’ said he, sipping his peg. ‘Maisey, you needn’t wear your heart on your sleeve in that disgustingly open fashion. Play euchre if you like, but don’t make a show of yourself.’

— Rudyard Kipling, 'The Joker'


58)
I've just about had enough of this "expense of spirit" lark, as far as women are concerned. Honestly, it's enough to make you become a scoutmaster or something isn't it? Sometimes I almost envy old Gide and the Greek Chorus boys. Oh, I'm not saying that it mustn't be hell for them a lot of the time. But, at least, they do seem to have a cause — not a particularly good one, it's true. But plenty of them do seem to have a revolutionary fire about them, which is more than you can say for the rest of us.

— John Osborne, 'Look Back In Anger'


59)
“Get up, Ross!”
“Huh? What? Wassamatter?”
“Show a leg. We’re burning daylight.”

— R. A. Heinlein, 'Rocket Ship Galileo'


60)
Undine’s heart was beating excitedly, for as he turned away she had identified him. Peter Van Degen — who could he be but young Peter Van Degen, the son of the great banker, Thurber Van Degen, the husband of Ralph Marvell’s cousin, the hero of “Sunday Supplements,” the captor of Blue Ribbons at Horse-Shows, of Gold Cups at Motor Races, the owner of winning race-horses and “crack” sloops: the supreme exponent, in short, of those crowning arts that made all life seem stale and unprofitable outside the magic ring of the Society Column?

— Edith Wharton, 'The Custom Of The Country'

61)
We're walking around inside and I say, ‘I hear a noise,’ and he’s saying it’s nothing. I looked out the living room toward the pool and I closed the blinds. We’re walking together and we’re coming out of the little den area and I pulled the stick out and popped him two times in the back of his head.

“He turns around and looks at me. ‘What are you doing?’ he says. He takes off through the kitchen toward the garage.

I actually looked at the gun, like, ‘What the fuck have I got? Blanks in there?’ So I run after him and I empty the rest in his head. It’s like an explosion going off every time.

But he doesn’t go down. The fuck starts running. It’s like a comedy of errors. I’m chasing him around the house, and I’ve emptied the thing in his head.

— Nicholas Pileggi, 'Casino'


62)
The poverty and anarchy of Dickens’s early life had stuffed his memory with strange things and people never to be discovered in Tennysonian country houses or even Thackerayan drawing-rooms. Poverty makes strange bedfellows, the same sort of bedfellows whom Mr. Pickwick fought for the recovery of his nightcap. In the vivid phrase, he did indeed live in Queer street and was acquainted with very queer fish.

— G. K. Chesterton, 'Charles Dickens, The Last Of The Great Men'


63)
— I am one to tell you, my lord, Stanley and a palindrome are making the beast with two backs, he said, and took Stanley's newspaper.

— William Gaddis, 'The Recognitions'


64)
Lem struggled to his feet and set out to follow Mr. Hainey’s instructions. In fact he ate two large meals and took two baths. It was only his New England training that prevented him from getting two haircuts.

Having done as much as he could to rehabilitate his body, he next went to the shop of Ephraim Pierce and Sons, where he was fitted out with a splendid wardrobe complete in every detail. Several hours later, he walked up Park Avenue to wait on his new employer, looking every inch a prosperous young business man of the finest type.

— Nathaniel West, 'A Cool Million'


65)
After 45 . . . BxB+; 46 PxB, KxP; 47 P-K5 the center Pawns are irresistible.

46 R-N1+ K-R5
47 K-B3 R-Q2

Or 47 . . . R-B1+; 48 B-B6, K-R6; 49 R-R1+, B-R7; 50 P-K5, R-K1; 51 K-K4, etc. The rest is silence.

— Bobby Fischer, 'My 60 Memorable Games'

66)
Napoleon I., whose career had the quality of a duel against the whole of Europe, disliked duelling between the officers of his army. The great military emperor was not a swashbuckler, and had little respect for tradition.

Nevertheless, a story of duelling, which became a legend in the army, runs through the epic of imperial wars. To the surprise and admiration of their fellows, two officers, like insane artists trying to gild refined gold or paint the lily, pursued a private contest through the years of universal carnage. They were officers of cavalry, and their connection with the high-spirited but fanciful animal which carries men into battle seems particularly appropriate. It would be difficult to imagine for heroes of this legend two officers of infantry of the line, for example, whose fantasy is tamed by much walking exercise, and whose valour necessarily must be of a more plodding kind. As to gunners or engineers, whose heads are kept cool on a diet of mathematics, it is simply unthinkable.

— Joseph Conrad, 'The Duel'


67)
"But enough of this," he said. "There are things to be done, and the night grows no younger."
He stepped nearer and lowered the blade.
“Good night, sweet Prince,” he said, and he moved to close with him.

— Roger Zelazny, 'The Chronicles Of Amber'


68)
I was very curious to know what I had said or done to cause her so much perturbation a moment before and so I continued to importune her to enlighten me.

“No,” she exclaimed, “it is enough that you have said it and that I have listened. And when you learn, John Carter, and if I be dead, as likely enough I shall be ere the further moon has circled Barsoom another twelve times, remember that I listened and that I — smiled.”

It was all Greek to me, but the more I begged her to explain the more positive became her denials of my request, and, so, in very hopelessness, I desisted.

— Edgar Rice Burroughs, 'A Princess Of Mars'


69)
“You surely conclude too hastily from the infelicity of marriage against its institution; will not the misery of life prove equally that life cannot be the gift of Heaven? The world must be peopled by marriage or peopled without it.”

— Samuel Johnson, 'Rasselas'


70)
Or better yet, think of none of that. Stand as I did after throwing the switch, a murderer, a betrayer, but still proud, feet firmly planted on Hyperion’s shifting sand, head held high, fist raised against the sky, crying ‘A plague on both your houses!’

— Dan Simmons, 'Hyperion'

71)
"What!" said the lady of the rectory. "Was Mr. Slope there too?"

Eleanor merely replied that such had been the case.

"Why, Eleanor, he must be very fond of you, I think; he seems to follow you everywhere."

Even this did not open Eleanor's eyes. She merely laughed, and said that she imagined Mr. Slope found other attraction at Dr. Stanhope's. And so they parted. Mrs. Grantly felt quite convinced that the odious match would take place, and Mrs. Bold as convinced that that unfortunate chaplain, disagreeable as he must be allowed to be, was more sinned against than sinning.

— Anthony Trollope, 'Barchester Towers'


72)
I am not a vitalist, but I suspect that in one way vitalism is right and that physicalism is wrong: there are more things in physics and biology than are dreamt of in all our philosophies.

— Karl Popper, 'Replies To My Critics'


73)
“Stand not upon the order of your going,” said Elvira, “but go, Juana, quickly, before it’s too late. There’s someone coming, and I must go. Only remember I told you so.”

— Jane Aiken Hodge, 'The Winding Stair'


74)
Robert Lowell once punched Jean Stafford in the face and broke her nose.
Which he had broken two years earlier by drunkenly smashing a car into a stone wall.

Men have died from time to time, and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

Bach and Handel, born twenty-six days apart.
And never once meeting.

Beethoven was left-handed.

— David Markson, 'This Is Not A Novel'


75)
Destined to be one of those rare persons who can say, ‘Simply the thing I am shall make me live,’ he was holding off with an instinctive obstinate wisdom anything that might hinder contact with the factors that were to form his particular nature. And one by one we see them enter — Cornwall and the sea, Oxford and church architecture, London and railway stations; then religion, announced by the strangest of all the bells that summon him throughout the narrative — it hangs on an elm bough, beaten by a bearded book-reading priest outside a ruined church; then, lastly, Magdalen, where for the first time his sullenly smouldering character bursts into violent flame, and the extraordinary blend of interests that we label Betjemania becomes recognizable.

— Philip Larkin, 'Blending Betjeman'

76)
In fairness to Mr. Buck I’ll state that a pal of his give him the dog as a present without no comment. Well they wasn’t no trouble till Gene had the dog pretty near 1/2 hr. when they let him out. He was gone 10 minutes during which Gene received a couple of phone calls announcing more in anger than in sorrow the sudden deaths of 2 adjacent cats of noble berth so when the dog come back Gene spanked him and give him a terrible scolding and after that he didn’t kill no more cats except when he got outdoors.

— Ring Lardner, 'Dogs'


77)
“There’s a time for all things. When I’ve got plenty of money, I’ll be nice as you please, too. Butter won’t melt in my mouth. I can afford to be then.”

“You can afford to be — but you won’t. It’s hard to salvage jettisoned cargo and, if it is retrieved, it’s usually irreparably damaged. And I fear that when you can afford to fish up the honor and virtue and kindness you’ve thrown overboard, you’ll find they have suffered a sea change and not, I fear, into something rich and strange...”

— Margaret Mitchell, 'Gone With The Wind'


78)
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

— T. S. Eliot, 'Ash Wednesday'


79)
You have heard — or anyway you will — people talk about evil times or an evil generation. There are no such things. No epoch of history nor generation of human beings either ever was or is or will be big enough to hold the un-virtue of any given moment, any more than they could contain all the air of any given moment; all they can do is hope to be as little soiled as possible during their passage through it. Because what pity that Virtue does not — possibly cannot — take care of its own as Non-virtue does. Probably it cannot: who to the dedicated to Virtue, offer in reward only cold and odorless and tasteless virtue: as compared not only to the bright rewards of sin and pleasure but to the ever watchful unflagging omniprescient skill — that incredible matchless capacity for invention and imagination — with which even the tottering footsteps of infancy are steadily and firmly guided into the primrose path.

— William Faulkner, 'The Reivers'


80)
Alas! “Frailty, thy name is Genius!” — What is become of all this mighty heap of hope, of thought, of learning, and humanity? It has ended in swallowing doses of oblivion and in writing paragraphs in the Courier. — Such and so little is the mind of man!

— William Hazlitt, 'Coleridge'

81)
Shad O'Rory had finished taking off his gloves. He put them in an overcoat-pocket and said: "Politics is politics and business is business. I've been paying my way and I'm willing to go on paying my way, but I want what I'm paying for." His modulated voice was no more than pleasantly earnest.
"What do you mean by that?" Madvig asked as if he did not greatly care.
"I mean that half the coppers in town are buying their cakes and ale with dough they're getting from me and some of my friends."
Madvig sat down by the table. "Well?" he asked, carelessly as before.
"I want what I'm paying for. I'm paying to be let alone. I want to be let alone."

— Dashiell Hammett, 'The Glass Key'


82)
Having confined his life so that he could act without strain according to this ideal, Kant devoted himself to scholarship, entirely governed by congenial routines. The little professor of Konigsberg has thus become the type of the modern philosopher: bounded in a nutshell, and counting himself king of infinite space.

— Roger Scruton, 'Kant'


83)
“ . . . How long was Mr. Ackroyd away?”
“He returned in the twinkling of an eye.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“I am constant as the northern star,” said Mr. Singleton, stifling a slight hiccough. “Ackroyd eggzited and re-entered immediately. He went to the door of the office. He appeared to address those within. He returned.”

— Ngaio Marsh, 'Vintage Murder'


84)
“The gallows and the sea refuse nothing,” is a very old sea saying; and, among all the wondrous prints of Hogarth, there is none remaining more true at the present day than that dramatic boat-scene, where after consorting with harlots and gambling on tomb-stones, the Idle Apprentice, with the villainous low forehead, is at last represented as being pushed off to sea, with a ship and a gallows in the distance. But Hogarth should have converted the ship’s masts themselves into Tyburn-trees, and thus, with the ocean for a background, closed the career of his hero. It would then have had all the dramatic force of the opera of Don Juan, who, after running his impious courses, is swept from our sight in a tornado of devils.

— Herman Melville, 'White Jacket'


85)
"Mothers, brothers and others, lend me your ears," said Harold Bloomguard, staggering to his feet. "Hear about Calvin and Francis almost blowing up some dude tonight?"

— Joseph Wambaugh, 'The Choirboys'

86)
I'd like some tea. My kingdom for a glass of tea! I've had nothing since breakfast.

— Anton Chekhov, 'Three Sisters'


87)
However, even though it seem a paradox, it remained for the nation most disposed to peace to create a yet greater agency of destruction than any thus far contrived. Not one which merely will surpass present weapons in degree, but one which will out-Herod Herod in battle equipment, one which will prove an all-efficient means of widespread annihilation on a gigantic scale; against which no army or nation could survive, and against which there could be offered no adequate defense or protection.

— Nikola Tesla, 'My Inventions And Other Writings'


88)
"She was a killer," I said. "But so was Malloy. And he was a long way from being all rat. Maybe that Baltimore dick wasn't so pure as the record shows. Maybe she saw a chance — not to get away — she was tired of dodging by that time — but to give a break to the only man who had ever really given her one."

Randall stared at me with his mouth open and his eyes unconvinced.

"Hell, she didn't have to shoot a cop to do that," he said.

"I'm not saying she was a saint or even a halfway nice girl. Not ever. She wouldn't kill herself until she was cornered. But what she did and the way she did it, kept her from coming back here for trial. Think that over. And who would that trial hurt most? Who would be least able to bear it? And win, lose or draw, who would pay the biggest price for the show? An old man who had loved not wisely, but too well."

— Raymond Chandler, 'Farewell My Lovely'


89)
“You see he was quite willing when you gave him the chance; I am sure he is a fine-tempered creature, and I dare say has known better days. You won’t put that rein on again, will you?” for he was just going to hitch it up on the old plan.

— Anna Sewell, 'Black Beauty'


90)
It was on a bitterly cold and frosty morning, towards the end of the winter of ’97, that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was amiss.

“Come, Watson, come!” he cried. “The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!”

— Arthur Conan Doyle, 'The Adventure Of The Abbey Grange'

91)
Man was matter, that was Snowden's secret. Drop him out a window and he'll fall. Set fire to him and he'll burn. Bury him and he'll rot, like other kinds of garbage. The spirit gone, man is garbage. That was Snowden's secret. Ripeness was all.

— Joseph Heller, 'Catch-22'


92)
“ . . . I scarcely know any one, Miss Lucy, who needs a friend more absolutely than you; your very faults imperatively require it. You want so much checking, regulating, and keeping down.”

This idea of “keeping down” never left M. Paul’s head; the most habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of it. No matter; what did it signify? I listened to him, and did not trouble myself to be too submissive; his occupation would have been gone, had I left him nothing to “keep down.”

— Charlotte Bronte, 'Villette'


93)
Paddington looked most offended at Mr. Briggs’s words as he sat on the floor rubbing his ears. It had been bad enough losing Mr. Brown’s brush up the chimney in the first place, but then to get his head stuck inside the pot and be mistaken for a bird’s nest into the bargain seemed the unkindest cut of all.

— Michael Bond, 'Paddington Marches On'


94)
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections;
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience:
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.

— W. H. Auden, 'In Memory Of W. B. Yeats'


95)
Nothing smells like a three hundred year old violin. I plucked the strings and it was surprisingly close. I took it out of the case and sat there and tuned it. I wondered where the Italians had gotten ebony wood. For the pegs. And the fingerboard of course. The tailpiece. I got out the bow. It was German made. Very nice ivory inlays. I tightened it and then I just sat there and started playing Bach’s Chaconne. The D Minor? I cant remember. Such a raw, haunting piece. He’d composed it for his wife who’d died while he was away. But I couldnt finish it.

Why not?

Because I just started crying. I started crying and I couldnt stop.

Why were you crying? Why are you crying?

I’m sorry. For more reasons than I could tell you. I remember blotting the tears off of the spruce top of the Amati and laying it aside and going into the bathroom to splash water on my face. But it just started again. I kept thinking of the lines: What a piece of work is a man. I couldnt stop crying. And I remember saying: What are we? Sitting there on the bed holding the Amati, which was so beautiful it hardly seemed real. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and I couldnt understand how such a thing could even be possible.

Do you want to stop?

Yes. I’m sorry.

— Cormac McCarthy, 'Stella Maris'

96)
And so, after a stretto in which all the themes of the chapter are gathered together over a pedalpoint ('Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap'), Bloom pushes on to his next adventure. The song of the cuckoo, which mocks married men, is to be deferred till nightfall, but 'Love's Old Sweet Song' is doubtless now jingling happily away.

— Anthony Burgess, 'Re Joyce'


97)
The duke hesitated, desperately trying to replay the monologue of the last five minutes. There had been something about him being half a man, and . . . infirm on purpose? And he was sure there had been a complaint about the coldness of the castle. Yes, that was probably it. Well, those wretched trees could do a decent day’s work for once.

— Terry Pratchett, 'Wyrd Sisters'


98)
Merrily, merrily shall I live now, secure behind a towering pile of carpets, in a corner-nook which I propose to line with eiderdowns, angora vestments, and the Cleopatraean tops in pillows. I shall be cosy.

— John Collier, 'Evening Primrose'


99)
Ah, this has been standing here for centuries. The premier work of man, perhaps, in the whole Western world, and it’s without a signature. Chartres. A celebration to God’s glory and to the dignity of man. All that’s left, most artists seem to feel these days, is man. Naked. Poor forked radish. There aren’t any celebrations. Ours, the scientists keep telling us, is a universe which is disposable. You know, it might be just this one anonymous glory of all things, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand, choiring shout of affirmation, which we choose when all our cities are dust, to stand intact, to mark where we have been, to testify to what we had it in us to accomplish.

Our works in stone, in paint, in print, are spared, some of them for a few decades or a millennium or two, but everything must finally fall in war or wear away into the ultimate and universal ash. The triumphs and the frauds, the treasures and the fakes. A fact of life. We’re going to die. ‘Be of good heart,’ cry the dead artists out of the living past. Our songs will all be silenced — but what of it? Go on singing.

Maybe a man’s name doesn’t matter all that much.

— Orson Welles, 'F For Fake' (Screenplay)


100)
Under the flagstone, safe from all harm, Taters he sleeps sound.

The rain it raineth every day,
Upon the just and the unjust fellow,
But more upon the just, because
The unjust hath the just’s umbrella.

On!

— Peter O'Toole, 'Loitering With Intent'

Hmmm. Bump, I guess.

>mfw I can tell which part is the Shakespeare quote but I haven't read beyond Macbeth and Venice so I can't tell from where it is.
Nevertheless, I tip my hat to you, /lit/'s strongest effortposter.
I recognize
1. "The world's your oyster"
2. Segments from Shylock's "hath not a jew eyes" speech
3. "Fear no more the heat of the sun
4. I assume Hamlet. "Alas, poor ghost".
5. "There is a world elsewhere"
10. One of the only sonnets of him I've read. 116 (I prefer 130)

I'm going to guess a lot of these, expecting some to be wrong. Surprisingly difficult even though I thought I knew my Shakespeare.
>>22395654
1 - "The world's your oyster" - (?)
2 - "If you prick [us], do [we] not bleed" - Shylock in Merchant of Venice
3 - "Fear no more the heat of the sun" - unsure
4 - "Alas, poor ghost" (?) - Hamlet (?)
5 - "There is a world elsewhere" (?) - unsure
>>22395660
6 - "with more devils than vast hell can hold" (?) - unsure
7 - "I know a trick worth two of that" (?)
8 - "When shall we three meet again" - Witches in Macbeth
9 - "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - Macbeth in Macbeth
10 - "marriage of true minds/ Admit impediment" - Sonnet 116
>>22395662
11 - "brevity is the soul of [wit]" - Polonius in Hamlet
12 - "damned spot" - Lady Macbeth in Macbeth
>>22395666
16 - "beware the green-eyed monster" - Iago in Othello
17 - "signifying nothing" - Macbeth in Macbeth
19 - "To thine own self be true" - Polonius in Hamlet
>>22395669
21 - "little brief authority" (?)
22 - "Exit Pursued by a [Bear]" - stage direction in The Winter's Tale
24 - "[Age] can not wither [her] nor custom stale [her] infinite [variety]" - Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra
25 - "Sceptered Isle" - John of Gaunt in Richard II
>>22395679
26 - "Angels and ministers of grace defend us" - Hamlet (?)
27 - "mirror up to nature" - Hamlet in Hamlet
28 - "the play's the thing" - Hamlet in Hamlet
30 - "working-day world" (?)
>>22395684
32 - "sweet and [twenty]" - Feste in Twelfth Night
33 - "[sweet are] the uses of adversity" - Duke Senior in As You Like It
>>22395686
38 - "‘tis well it were done quickly" or something similar - Macbeth
39 - "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" - Marcellus in Hamlet
>>22395692
41 - "the better part of valour is discretion" - Falstaff in Henry IV Part 1
42 - "get thee to a nunnery" - Hamlet in Hamlet
44 - "honourable men" - Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
45 - "by the pricking of my thumbs" - Witch in Macbeth
>>22395695
47 - "Time out of Joint" - Hamlet
48 - "milk of human kindness" - unsure
49 - "Now is the win[t]er of our [discontent]" - Richard III in Richard III
50 - "the chimes at midnight" - Falstaff in Henry IV Part 2
>>22395697
51 - "Lord, what fools these mortals be" - Titania (?) in A Midsummer Night's Dream
52 - "tell the truth and shame the devil" - (?)
54 - "Very like a whale" - Polonius(?) in Hamlet
55 - "sharper than a serpent's tooth" (?)
>>22395702
58 - "expense of spirit" - Sonnet (forgot number)
60 - "stale[, flat] and unprofitable" - Hamlet in Hamlet
>>22395706
61 - "[C]omedy of [E]rrors"
63 - "beast with two backs" - Othello/Iago (?) in Othello
65 - "The rest is silence" - Hamlet in Hamlet
>>22395710
66 - "paint the lily" - unsure
67 - "Goodnight, sweet prince" - Horatio in Hamlet
68 - "all Greek to me" - unsure
69 - "The world must be peopled" - unsure
70 - "A plague on both your houses" - Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet
(1/2)

>>22397539
>>22395714
71 - "more sinned against than sinning" - King Lear
72 - "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [your philosophy]" - Hamlet in Hamlet
73 - "Stand not upon the order of your going" (?)
>>22395716
76 - "[countenance] more in [sorrow] than in [anger]" - Hamlet
77 - "sea change" - Ariel in The Tempest
79 - "primrose path" - Ophelia/Laertes(?) in Hamlet
80 - "Frailty, thy name is [woman]" - Hamlet in Hamlet
>>22395720
81 - "cakes and ale" - Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night
82 - "count[ myself] king of infinite space" - Hamlet in Hamlet
85 - "lend me your ears" - Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
>>22395724
86 - "My kingdom for a [horse]" - Richard III in Richard III
88 - "loved not wisely, but too well" (?)
90 - "The game is afoot" (?) - Macbeth (?)
>>22395728
91 - "[The readiness is] all" (?) - Hamlet in Hamlet
95 - "What a piece of work is a man" - Hamlet in Hamlet
>>22395737
100 - "The rain it raineth every day" - The Fool in King Lear and Feste in Twelfth Night

>>22397321
Yes, all good. In most of these the quotation isn't too hidden, I think.


>1. "The world's your oyster"

Why, then the world's mine oyster, which I with sword will open.

[The Merry Wives Of Windsor]


>2. Segments from Shylock's "hath not a jew eyes" speech

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, shall we not revenge?

[The Merchant Of Venice]


>3. "Fear no more the heat of the sun

Fear no more the heat o' th' sun
Nor the furious winter's rages;
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages.
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.

[Cymbeline]


>4. I assume Hamlet. "Alas, poor ghost".

Right. Hamlet sympathising with his father:

— My hour is almost come,
When I to sulph'rous and tormenting flames
Must render up myself.

— Alas, poor ghost!


>5. "There is a world elsewhere"

It's Coriolanus after he gets banished, saying basically, damn the lot of you, I don't care:

. . . . Despising
For you the city, thus I turn my back;
There is a world elsewhere.


>10. One of the only sonnets of him I've read. 116 (I prefer 130)

Correct.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds . . .

etc

>>22397539
This seems quite comprehensive. Let's have a look. I'll have to answer in easy stages, which means more cute anime girls for you!


1–5 & 10 are covered above.


>6 - "with more devils than vast hell can hold" (?) - unsure
I don't think that's Shakespeare, or only tenuously. The whole passage is a bit treacherous because it's clearly thick with allusions / half-allusions (e.g. "miracles of rare device" is from Coleridge). But the "main" Shakespeare quotation is more-or-less verbatim, earlier than your suggestion.

>7 - "I know a trick worth two of that" (?)
Correct. Maybe someone else will get the play.

>8 - "When shall we three meet again" - Witches in Macbeth
When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

>9 - "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" - Macbeth in Macbeth
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death.

>11 - "brevity is the soul of [wit]" - Polonius in Hamlet
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief.

>12 - "damned spot" - Lady Macbeth in Macbeth
Out, damned spot! Out, I say!

>16 - "beware the green-eyed monster" - Iago in Othello
O, beware, my lord, of jealousy!
It is the green-eyed monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.

>17 - "signifying nothing" - Macbeth in Macbeth
. . . . It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

>19 - "To thine own self be true" - Polonius in Hamlet
This above all — to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

>>22397539
>21 - "little brief authority" (?)
Could be. Someone needs to step in with some more information.

>22 - "Exit Pursued by a [Bear]" - stage direction in The Winter's Tale
Correct.

>24 - "[Age] can not wither [her] nor custom stale [her] infinite [variety]" - Enobarbus in Antony and Cleopatra
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety. Other women cloy
The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry
Where most she satisfies; for vilest things
Become themselves in her, that the holy priests
Bless her when she is riggish.

>25 - "Sceptered Isle" - John of Gaunt in Richard II
This royal throne of kings, this scept'red isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war...

>26 - "Angels and ministers of grace defend us" - Hamlet (?)
Correct. He does keep popping up. Maybe I should have tried to spread them out a bit more democratically.

>27 - "mirror up to nature" - Hamlet in Hamlet
Suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show Virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.

>28 - "the play's the thing" - Hamlet in Hamlet
. . . . I'll have grounds
More relative than this. The play's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King.
[A sort of smart-aleck allusion since "play" is a pun. Every bridge book ever written says this.]

30 - "working-day world" (?)
Correct; again we need someone to step in with a title. I was surprised how many entries this play had, actually.

>>22397539

>32 - "sweet and [twenty]" - Feste in Twelfth Night
Right, well spotted in that wall of text.

In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

>33 - "[sweet are] the uses of adversity" - Duke Senior in As You Like It
Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head...

>38 - "‘tis well it were done quickly" or something similar - Macbeth
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly.
[This one has a second quotation also.]

>39 - "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark" - Marcellus in Hamlet
Correct.

>41 - "the better part of valour is discretion" - Falstaff in Henry IV Part 1
The better part of valour is discretion; in the which better part I have saved my life.

>42 - "get thee to a nunnery" - Hamlet in Hamlet
Get thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?

>44 - "honourable men" - Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest —
For Brutus is an honorable man;
So are they all, all honorable men —
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.

>45 - "by the pricking of my thumbs" - Witch in Macbeth
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
[Ray Bradbury used the second line as a title, IIRC.]

>47 - "Time out of Joint" - Hamlet
The time is out of joint. O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right.

>48 - "milk of human kindness" - unsure
Correct. I think someone else might locate this one as it's quite well known.

>49 - "Now is the win[t]er of our [discontent]" - Richard III in Richard III
Correct. A moderately well-camouflaged allusion from from Mr. Beatle.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York...

>50 - "the chimes at midnight" - Falstaff in Henry IV Part 2
Correct, from another wall of text (and Carlyle quotes about once per line so there's probably other stuff in there):

We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

>>22397539

>51 - "Lord, what fools these mortals be" - Titania (?) in A Midsummer Night's Dream
Right play, wrong character. It's Puck. Titania is off falling in love with Bottom-with-donkey-head by that point, so she's hardly in a position to sneer at the folly of humans.

>52 - "tell the truth and shame the devil" - (?)
Yep, that's the reference. Getting the play for this one is trickier I think. (It sounds as though Shakespeare might have been quoting a proverb. I'm not 100% sure he coined the phrase.)

>54 - "Very like a whale" - Polonius(?) in Hamlet
Correct. Hamlet forcing Polonius to jump through hoops, just because.

— Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
— By th' mass, and 'tis like a camel indeed.
— Methinks it is like a weasel.
— It is back'd like a weasel.
— Or like a whale.
— Very like a whale.

>55 - "sharper than a serpent's tooth" (?)
Right. Another relatively well-known one so I think someone else might nail the play.

>58 - "expense of spirit" - Sonnet (forgot number)
Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action, and till action, lust
s perjured, murd'rous, bloody full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust...
[Sonnet 129]

>60 - "stale[, flat] and unprofitable" - Hamlet in Hamlet
. . . . O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

>61 - "[C]omedy of [E]rrors"
Correct.

>63 - "beast with two backs" - Othello/Iago (?) in Othello
I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.

>65 - "The rest is silence" - Hamlet in Hamlet
Correct.

>66 - "paint the lily" - unsure
Correct. "To gild refined gold, to pain the lily", although it often gets misquoted as "gild the lily". It's about the only famous quotation from a relatively minor play.

>67 - "Goodnight, sweet prince" - Horatio in Hamlet
Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,
And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!

>68 - "all Greek to me" - unsure
>69 - "The world must be peopled" - unsure
Both right. One tragedy/history, one comedy.

>70 - "A plague on both your houses" - Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet
Correct, his dying words. (Well, technically it's "A plague a' both your houses!", but everyone just changes it to "on", which is fair enough.)

>>22397578

>71 - "more sinned against than sinning" - King Lear
. . . . I am a man
More sinn'd against than sinning.

>72 - "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in [your philosophy]" - Hamlet in Hamlet
Of course.

>73 - "Stand not upon the order of your going" (?)
Correct. I think this play was second after Hamlet for number of quotations (but a very distant second).

>76 - "[countenance] more in [sorrow] than in [anger]" - Hamlet
Right. People often swap this for ironic / humorous effect, it seems.

— What, look'd he frowningly?
— A countenance more in sorrow than in anger.

>77 - "sea change" - Ariel in The Tempest
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.

>79 - "primrose path" - Ophelia/Laertes(?) in Hamlet
Yeah, Ophelia to Laertes. He's been giving her some Good Advice and she's well aware he's likely to give good advice and not follow it himself.

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles like a puffed and reckless libertine
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,
And recks not his own rede.

>80 - "Frailty, thy name is [woman]" - Hamlet in Hamlet
Of course.

>81 - "cakes and ale" - Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night
Telling Malvolio to lighten up. "Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

>82 - "count[ myself] king of infinite space" - Hamlet in Hamlet
O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

>85 - "lend me your ears" - Mark Antony in Julius Caesar
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears!

>86 - "My kingdom for a [horse]" - Richard III in Richard III
Of course.

>88 - "loved not wisely, but too well" (?)
Correct. It's from the last speech of a tragic hero.

>90 - "The game is afoot" (?) - Macbeth (?)
Not Macbeth.

>91 - "[The readiness is] all" (?) - Hamlet in Hamlet
Hamlet's comment is the right sentiment, but someone else expresses it as well, and the passage is quoting him verbatim.

>95 - "What a piece of work is a man" - Hamlet in Hamlet
Correct.

>100 - "The rain it raineth every day" - The Fool in King Lear and Feste in Twelfth Night
Right, the only identical double-entry I think.

He that has and a little tiny wit-
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain-
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day.
[Lear]

When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
[Twelfth Night]


Pretty impressive. Maybe someone else will plug a few gaps and we'll get the whole hundred wrapped up.

Bump.

Bump.

These threads are awesome by the way

These are fantastic! Do you have the answers to the Bible quiz you did earlier? I think there were a few that nobody got

okay, i'll give it a go

Wow, this is really amazing, last month i buy hamlet book, but its really hard to read it. Thanks to this thread, i think i'll try to read it again

>>22397874
23 is from Henry V
A little touch of Flashy [Harry] in the night
29 is from Hamlet
To the manor [manner] born

>>22401815
That thread is archived here:

https://archived.moe/lit/thread/22367914

I guess about 35-40 got answered correctly by the end. Someone did the first 20 in a single post.

It would be a bit cumbersome (and off-topic) to post all the answers here. If there's any specific one you want, give me the number.

Here are the first twenty references. I'll dump some more later perhaps.

1) Genesis 45:18
2) Psalms 137:1
3) Job 1:7
4) 2 Kings 2:11
5) Luke 11:11-13
6) 2 Chronicles 34:2
7) Psalms 58:3-5
8) 1 Corinthians 15:47
9) Romans 2:14
10) Matthew 10:30 [also Luke 12:7]
11) Matthew 5:15 [also Mark 4:21, Luke 11:33]
12) Luke 24:13-16
13) Luke 7:37-38 [also John 12:3]
14) Psalms 8:6-8 [also Exodus, Deuteronomy, etc]
15) 1 Corinthians 14:40
16) Romans 8:13 [also Colossians 3:5 & 2 Esdras]
17) John 1:46
18) Matthew 5:5
19) Matthew 26:10-11 [also Mark, John]
20) Genesis 4:9

15 hamlet caviar to the generals
34 Hamlet dog days
40 Othello vaulting ambition
43 Hamlet Cruel to be kind
46 Merchant of Venice devil cite scripture
56 King Lear Sharper serpants tooth
57 Othello Heart sleeve
59 Romeo Juliet Burning Daylight
62 Tempest Strange bedfellows
83 Hamlet constant north star
93 Julius Caesar Unkindest cut
97 Macbeth wyrd = weird sisters
98 Tempest Merrily Merrily Ariel

>>22403092
>23 is from Henry V
>A little touch of Flashy [Harry] in the night
Correct.

A largess universal, like the sun,
His liberal eye doth give to every one,
Thawing cold fear, that mean and gentle all
Behold, as may unworthiness define,
A little touch of Harry in the night.

[Henry V]


>29 is from Hamlet
>To the manor [manner] born
Correct.

But to my mind, though I am native here
And to the manner born, it is a custom
More honour'd in the breach than the observance.

[Hamlet]

>>22403179
Ah, another cute anime girl to kidnap and carry off to my cabin in the woods. Excellent, excellent.

Most of these are right:


>15 hamlet caviar to the generals
Correct.

"The play, I remember, pleased not the million, 'twas caviare to the general."

(Another cutesy one since it's basically punning on the original.)


>34 Hamlet dog days
Correct.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, and dog will have his day.


>40 Othello vaulting ambition
Right phrase, wrong play.


>43 Hamlet Cruel to be kind
Correct.

I must be cruel, only to be kind;
Thus bad begins, and worse remains behind.


>46 Merchant of Venice devil cite scripture
Correct.

. . . . Mark you this, Bassanio,
The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.


>56 King Lear Sharper serpants tooth
55 not 56, but yes, it's King Lear:

. . . . If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatur'd torment to her.
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother's pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!


>57 Othello Heart sleeve
Correct. Iago basically saying he *won't* do this, because he doesn't want to reveal himself and make himself vulnerable:

For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In complement extern, 'tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at: I am not what I am.


>59 Romeo Juliet Burning Daylight
>62 Tempest Strange bedfellows
>83 Hamlet constant north star
In all these you have the right phrase, but wrong play.


>93 Julius Caesar Unkindest cut
Correct.

This was the most unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitors' arms,
Quite vanquish'd him.


>97 Macbeth wyrd = weird sisters
Yes, wyrd = weird. (The whole book is basically a parody of Macbeth.) But there's a specific reference in the text. It's slightly tricky because it's playing cute games (like #15), twisting the original for humorous effect.


>98 Tempest Merrily Merrily Ariel
Correct.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

>>22403234
roger

>>22403237
Yagi Yui

>>22403237
I can't even read nya

>>22403237
I've only run out of cute anime girls once I think: in December last year, for Starring Santa (the only quiz to be completed so far). But it doesn't hurt to have plenty in reserve.

>>22403237
I quit mahjong ages ago fuck you

bakyou