While clearing my room today, I chanced upon something that I brought back from my recent India visit. They are nothing but some pages of my diary and some loose pages where I had jotted down few lines from some of my favourite books.
Jotting down interesting lines from the books was never a habit or hobby of mine but I think for a short while I did try and toy with penning down few paras that I really liked and were not too long to write ;-). Soon I gave up on that, but during that short period few lines did make their way from print to pages of my notebook. Come to think of it, these may not even be the best lines of the novel, not even the most potent ideas. While reading these papers, I could think of several other pieces in those novels which should have been noted but they were not. I don’t know the reasons, may be they were too long, may be I was too tired to write, may be I just didn’t care to write but then this post is not about what was not done but rather about what was. And if there are lines that I jotted down then they must have had something in them to make me put pen to paper. Isn’t it ?
Now given, loose sheets are prone to slip out of sight and have a tendency to play hard to get so I have decided to transfer few of those lines from those sheets to this webpage. Hopefully, this will make it easy, just in case I want to re-read them at a later date.
So here we go.
Anna Karenina
All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way.
Far from the Madding crowd
Advice is one of those things; it is far more blessed to give than to receive.
It has been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail.
To Kill a Mocking Bird
[Courage is] when you know, you are licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
“They are certainly entitled to think that, and they are entitled to full respect for their opinions”, said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
Wuthering Heights
My love for Linton is like foliage in the woods - time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath, a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I’m Heathcliff, he’s always in my mind not as a pleasure, any more than I’m always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.
Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I’m living. You said, I kill you-haunt me then ! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe – I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterabl I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!
- (Heathcliff upon Catherine’s death)
Fountainhead
Roark walked home. It was dark and the street was deserted. There was a strong wind. He could feel the cold, whistling pressure strike his cheeks. It was the only evidence of flow ripping the air. Nothing moved in the stone corridor about him. There was not a tree to stir, no curtains, no awnings; only naked masses of stone, glass, asphalt and sharp corners. It was strange to feel that fierce movement against his face. But in a wastepaper basket on a corner a crumpled sheet of newspaper was rustling, beating convulsively against the wire mesh. It made the wind real.
Self-sacrifice, we drool, is the ultimate virtue. Let’s stop and think for a moment. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honour? His freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feelings? The independence of his thoughts? But these are man’s supreme possessions. Anything he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain. They however are above sacrifice to any cause or consideration whatsoever. Should we not, then, stop preaching dangerous and vicious non-sense? Self Sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot be and must not be sacrificed. It is unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all.
- (Gail Wynnard defending Howard Roark in one of his editorials)
All growth demands destruction, you can’t make ommlette without breaking the eggs.
1984
If you love someone, you love him and when you have nothing else to give, you still give him love. When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert the child’s death or her own, but it seemed natural to her to do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also covered the little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the bullets than a sheet of paper.
Being in a minority, even a minority of one did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you cling to the truth even against the whole world , you were not mad…Sanity is not statistical.
Physical facts couldn’t be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing gun or airplane they had to make four.
He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending involving a couple of knights. ‘White to play and mate in two moves’. Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal unvarying triumph of good over evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates.
Gone with the wind
Apologies once postponed, became harder and harder to make, and finally impossible.
Everybody knew how cold and heartless she was. Everybody was appalled at the seeming ease with which she had recovered from Bonnie’s death. Never realizing or caring to realize the effort that lay behind that seeming recovery.
War and Peace
Every one lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory – and after all what is glory? Desire for others’ approval. So I lived for others and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I’ve become calmer since I began to live for myself.
Whenever I look at my watch and its hand point to ten, I hear the bells of neighbouring church; but I’ve no right to assume that because bell begin to ring when the hands of the watch reach ten, the movement of the bells is caused by the position of the hands on the watch.
Whenever I see the movement of the locomotive, I hear the whistle and see the valves opening and wheels turning; but I’ve no right to conclude that the whistling and turning of wheels are the cause of movements of engine.
The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak is budding. But though I don’t know what causes the cold winds to blow when the oak-buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the force of wind is beyond the influence of the buds.
I see only a coincidence of occurrence such as happens with all the phenomena of life and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine moving, or of the winds of the spring. To do that I must entirely change my point of view and study the law of movement of the steam, of the bells and of the wind.
But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the highest rewards.
"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?
Jotting down interesting lines from the books was never a habit or hobby of mine but I think for a short while I did try and toy with penning down few paras that I really liked and were not too long to write ;-). Soon I gave up on that, but during that short period few lines did make their way from print to pages of my notebook. Come to think of it, these may not even be the best lines of the novel, not even the most potent ideas. While reading these papers, I could think of several other pieces in those novels which should have been noted but they were not. I don’t know the reasons, may be they were too long, may be I was too tired to write, may be I just didn’t care to write but then this post is not about what was not done but rather about what was. And if there are lines that I jotted down then they must have had something in them to make me put pen to paper. Isn’t it ?
Now given, loose sheets are prone to slip out of sight and have a tendency to play hard to get so I have decided to transfer few of those lines from those sheets to this webpage. Hopefully, this will make it easy, just in case I want to re-read them at a later date.
So here we go.
Anna Karenina
All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in their own way.
Far from the Madding crowd
Advice is one of those things; it is far more blessed to give than to receive.
It has been observed that there is no regular path for getting out of love as there is for getting in. Some people look upon marriage as a short cut that way, but it has been known to fail.
To Kill a Mocking Bird
[Courage is] when you know, you are licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.
“They are certainly entitled to think that, and they are entitled to full respect for their opinions”, said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
Wuthering Heights
My love for Linton is like foliage in the woods - time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath, a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I’m Heathcliff, he’s always in my mind not as a pleasure, any more than I’m always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being.
Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I’m living. You said, I kill you-haunt me then ! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe – I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterabl I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!
- (Heathcliff upon Catherine’s death)
Fountainhead
Roark walked home. It was dark and the street was deserted. There was a strong wind. He could feel the cold, whistling pressure strike his cheeks. It was the only evidence of flow ripping the air. Nothing moved in the stone corridor about him. There was not a tree to stir, no curtains, no awnings; only naked masses of stone, glass, asphalt and sharp corners. It was strange to feel that fierce movement against his face. But in a wastepaper basket on a corner a crumpled sheet of newspaper was rustling, beating convulsively against the wire mesh. It made the wind real.
Self-sacrifice, we drool, is the ultimate virtue. Let’s stop and think for a moment. Is sacrifice a virtue? Can a man sacrifice his integrity? His honour? His freedom? His ideal? His convictions? The honesty of his feelings? The independence of his thoughts? But these are man’s supreme possessions. Anything he gives up for them is not a sacrifice but an easy bargain. They however are above sacrifice to any cause or consideration whatsoever. Should we not, then, stop preaching dangerous and vicious non-sense? Self Sacrifice? But it is precisely the self that cannot be and must not be sacrificed. It is unsacrificed self that we must respect in man above all.
- (Gail Wynnard defending Howard Roark in one of his editorials)
All growth demands destruction, you can’t make ommlette without breaking the eggs.
1984
If you love someone, you love him and when you have nothing else to give, you still give him love. When the last of the chocolate was gone, his mother had clasped the child in her arms. It was no use, it changed nothing, it did not produce more chocolate, it did not avert the child’s death or her own, but it seemed natural to her to do it. The refugee woman in the boat had also covered the little boy with her arm, which was no more use against the bullets than a sheet of paper.
Being in a minority, even a minority of one did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you cling to the truth even against the whole world , you were not mad…Sanity is not statistical.
Physical facts couldn’t be ignored. In philosophy, or religion, or ethics, or politics, two and two might make five, but when one was designing gun or airplane they had to make four.
He examined the chess problem and set out the pieces. It was a tricky ending involving a couple of knights. ‘White to play and mate in two moves’. Winston looked up at the portrait of Big Brother. White always mates, he thought with a sort of cloudy mysticism. Always, without exception, it is so arranged. In no chess problem since the beginning of world has black ever won. Did it not symbolize the eternal unvarying triumph of good over evil? The huge face gazed back at him, full of calm power. White always mates.
Gone with the wind
Apologies once postponed, became harder and harder to make, and finally impossible.
Everybody knew how cold and heartless she was. Everybody was appalled at the seeming ease with which she had recovered from Bonnie’s death. Never realizing or caring to realize the effort that lay behind that seeming recovery.
War and Peace
Every one lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory – and after all what is glory? Desire for others’ approval. So I lived for others and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I’ve become calmer since I began to live for myself.
Whenever I look at my watch and its hand point to ten, I hear the bells of neighbouring church; but I’ve no right to assume that because bell begin to ring when the hands of the watch reach ten, the movement of the bells is caused by the position of the hands on the watch.
Whenever I see the movement of the locomotive, I hear the whistle and see the valves opening and wheels turning; but I’ve no right to conclude that the whistling and turning of wheels are the cause of movements of engine.
The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak is budding. But though I don’t know what causes the cold winds to blow when the oak-buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the force of wind is beyond the influence of the buds.
I see only a coincidence of occurrence such as happens with all the phenomena of life and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine moving, or of the winds of the spring. To do that I must entirely change my point of view and study the law of movement of the steam, of the bells and of the wind.
But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese, wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the highest rewards.
"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear them?
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