TTT: Witty Things Literary Characters Said

Top Ten Tuesday: Witty Things Literary Characters Said

Veblen to a squirrel:

“I want to meet muckrakers, carousers, the sweet-toothed, and the lion-hearted, and you don't know it yet, but you are all of these.”
                               ― Elizabeth Mckenzie, The Portable Veblen

Veblen cautions her mother not to worry. Her mother's replay follows:

“Don't worry about it."

"When you're me, there's always something to worry about. Everything goes wrong for me, and you know it.”
                              ― Elizabeth Mckenzie, The Portable Veblen

Willa to her mother, Rocky:

“Mom, try not to hurt your own feelings for no reason,” Willa says. 
                             ― Catherine Newman, Sandwich

Rocky musing to herself:

“Who wants a guy to last longer? Finish up is my feeling. My library book’s not going to read itself!”
                            ― Catherine Newman, Sandwich

Judi Dench to Brendan O'Hea, during their discussion about the Shakespeare plays Judi has acted in:

“The word ‘play’ is at the heart of what we do as actors – players putting on plays by playwrights in playhouses for playgoers. Play is everything.”
                           ― Judi Dench, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent

Judi Dench during same interview:

“Never trust a man who when left alone in a room with a tea cosy doesn’t try it on.”
                          ― Judi Dench, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent

The main character, an unnamed poet/teacher, to his high school class about a poem:

"Imagine the speaker. What is the small rain, isn't it beautiful, the weird adjective, how can rain be small; and does he want it, the speaker of the poem, does he long for the rain, is that how we should understand the cracked syntax, and isn't the poem more beautiful for it, for the difficulty, for the way we can't quite make sense of it, settled sense, I mean, for how it won't stay still..."

                         ― Garth Greenwell, Small Rain

A husband, Rainy, recalls what his wife, Lark, always said:

I still hear it in Lark's voice. "Better is here. Stay, and make it better. That is our job always and forever to refuse Apocalypse in all its forms and work cheerfully against it.”

                         ― Leif Enger, I Cheerfully Refuse

Aunt Marla to her niece, Alexandra:

“Anger is a funny thing. And it does funny things to us if we keep it inside. I encourage you to consider a question: Who benefits, my dear, when you force yourself to not feel angry?" She tilted her head and looked at me so hard I thought she could see right into my bones. She raised her eyebrows. "Clearly not you.”
                       ― Kelly Barnhill, When Women Were Dragons

Lara's mother to Phoebe:

“I didn’t want to be saved from myself. Nobody does! All we want is permission to stand there naked and be our damned selves.”
                       ― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

Juice (11-year-old) to her father, Gary, and Phoebe:

Oh, my God," Juice says, coming back from the bathroom. Her hands are still wet from washing."There was this sign in the bathroom that said 40 PEOPLE MAX IN THIS ROOM. Like why would forty people ever be in the bathroom? Like what would you even say to all forty people in the bathroom?"

                      ― Alison Espach, The Wedding People

-Anne