Is Your Book Quotable?
By Brad R. Cook
To
quote or not to quote, that is the question… It was the best of quotes, it was
the worst of quotes… My name is Inigo Montoya. You quoted my father. Prepare to
die…
I
might be having a little fun, but quotes from books are the gems of writing. I
often wonder how the great quotes come about. Do writers craft these while they
write, are they the product of a thousand rewrites, or does the universe flow
through an authors fingers to unveil the hand of god.
Quotes
are what readers remember. Authors spend a hundred thousand words crafting a
book, but it is these few, yet perfect words, formed into a beautiful phrase
that will linger in a reader’s mind.
Quotes
are one parts of a book that brings immortality. Characters, climaxes, twists,
and themes will carry on, remembered well past the point that plots and themes have
faded from memory. But Quotes define books, define authors, and even time
periods.
Quotes
can impart universal wisdom, heal the soul from tragedy, capture a moment in
time, or make us laugh. Some people horde quotes, others live by them. They are
passed around, and recited everywhere, from graduations to casual conversations.
Often they are repeated by people who haven’t read the book they came from.
So,
is your book quotable? Having written tens of thousands of words, there has to
be one or two sentences that define a moment, sum up the book or theme, or are so
wonderfully crafted that word hounds will want to devour them. But how do you
know?
I
can’t tell you how to write a quote. Such greatness is for the hand of god, or
the intricate weaving of true wordsmiths. But I can help you find the diamonds
in the rough.
1 - Look
for them while you edit – I still don’t know if anyone types a sentence, sits
back, puts their hands behind their head, and says, “That’s it, call the
English teachers, I got a new poster quote for them.” I suggest as you edit,
look for the phrases that make you say – “Wow, I wrote that?”
2 - Quotes
can come from narration, but often will be found in dialog. The narrator can
turn a beautiful phrase, but many quotes come from the voice of a character
imparting their wisdom to the others in the scene and the reader.
3 - Ask
your readers what line stuck with them – readers are devourer of words, and
have been trained by countless novels to find the gems amongst all the boring
words.
Some
examples of great quotes
One of my favorites of all time:
“But
no living man am I! You look upon a woman.” – Eowyn from The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien.
Shakespeare was a quote god, I’m
not sure if his contemporaries were that bad at writing or he was just that
good, but there are so many…
“To
be or not to be, that is the question.” – Hamlet
"What’s
in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as
sweet." – Romeo and Juliet
“Love
looks not with eyes, but with the mind, and therefore is winged Cupid painted
blind.” – A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Other great quotes from literature:
“It
was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” —A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
“And
so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the
past.” —The Great Gatsby by F
Scott Fitzgerald
"We
are not always what we seem, and hardly ever what we dream." –The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
“All
we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” —The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R.
Tolkien
“Most
men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of
revolution.” —Brave New World by
Aldous Huxley
“My
dear, I don’t give a damn.” —Gone With
the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
“There
are few people whom I really love and still fewer of whom I think well.” —Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin
"Until
I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love
breathing." –To Kill A Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
“Life
is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” —The Princess Bride by William Goldman
"There is no such thing as a moral or immoral
book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all." –The Picture Of Dorian Gray by Oscar
Wilde
I’ll leave you with one of mine,
from my novel Iron Horsemen:
What
are some of your favorite quotes from books? Let us know in the comments.
Brad R.
Cook, author of the YA steampunk series, The
Iron Chronicles. Iron Horsemen - http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Horsemen-The-Chronicles/dp/0989207951 and Iron Zulu - http://www.amazon.com/Iron-Zulu-Book-Two-Chronicles/dp/0989207978. He currently serves as Historian of St. Louis
Writers Guild after three and half years as its President. Learn more at www.bradrcook.com, on
Twitter @bradrcook https://twitter.com/bradrcook,
or
on his blog Thoughts from Midnight on tumblr http://bradrcook.tumblr.com/
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