Quotes Flashcards
“There was a wrestling match at the ticket window instead of a queue, because everyone wanted to be first; and as most people were carrying chickens or children or other bulky items, the result was a free-for-all out of which feathers and toys and dislodged hats kept flying”
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
While he is waiting for a bus to leave on his father’s business trip
That’s the trouble with you sad city types: you think a place has to be miserable and dull as ditchwater before you believe it’s real
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
While Blabbermouth is showing Haround around the palace on Kahani
‘But but but what is the point of giving persons Freedom of Speech,’ declaimed Butt the Hoopoe, ‘if you then say they must not utilize same? And is not the Power of Speech the greatest Power of all? Then surely it must be exercised to the full?
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
Butt the Hoopoe explaining to Haroun why everyone talks back to authority
“Skinny, scrawny, measly, weaselly, snivelling clerical type”
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
Haroun’s description of the Chupwalas when he meets them on Kattam-Shud’s ship
All around them, Chupwalas were putting on really rather fashionable wrap-around dark glasses, to help them see better in the increased level of light. ‘Now they look like office clerks pretending to be rock stars,’ thought Haroun
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
When he turns the sun and the Chupwalas have to adjust to living in the light
The Chupwalas who lived there wore little spherical nose warmers that gave them the look of circus clowns, except that the nose warmers were black. Red nose warmers were issued to the Pages of Gup as they marched into he Darkness. ‘Really, this is beginning to look like a war between buffoons,’ thought Rashid.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
When the group arrives at Chup city to rescue princess Batcheat
Haroun often thought of his father as a Juggler, because his stories were really lots of different tales juggled together, and Rashid kept them going in a sort of dizzy whirl
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
At the beginning as the narrator is describing Rashid Khalifa
And at that exact moment, without a word, Blabbermouth took three soft balls made of golden silk from one of her pockets, tossed them in the air so that they caught the sunlight, and began to juggle.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
Blabbermouth is showing Haroun around and wants to show him who he is dealing with
The ambassador began his performance. From the depths of his cloak he produced a bewildering variety of objects–ebony balls, ninepins, jade statuettes, porcelain tea-cups, live terrapins, lighted cigarettes, hats–and flung them into the air in mesmerizing hoops and whirls.
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
When the ambassador comes to meet the group from the city of Chup and is trying to “entertain them” but really kill them
‘Doesn’t it muddle up the stories?’ Haroun inquired. “All this turbulence. It must mix things up dreadfully.’ ‘No problem!’ cried Butt the Hoopoe. ‘Any story worth its salt can handle a little shaking up! Va-voom!’
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
Salman Rushdie
When Haroun is getting to Kahani and seeing everything for the first time
“I was horrified, but it was initially the horror of something happening against the established order of things. I was fully dressed. That was wrong. I had my sandals on. That was wrong. The bathwater was cold, so cold and so wrong”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
When his father is nearly drowning him in the tub
“I dipped my fingers into the water, then I climbed in and sat down on the tin floor of the bath in that reassuring kitchen in front of the huge fire, and I leaned back in the hot water”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
When he is having a bath at the Hempstocks after running away from home
Dinner was wonderful. There was
a joint of beef, with roast potatoes,
golden-crisp on the outside and
soft and white inside, buttered
greens I did not recognize,
although I think now that they
might have been nettles, roasted
carrots all blackened and sweet. …
For dessert there was the pie,
stuffed with apples and with
swollen raisins and crushed nuts, all
topped with a thick yellow custard,
creamier and richer than anything I
had ever tasted…”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
Having supper at the Hemstocks after running away
“My father did not like toasters. He
toasted bread under the grill, and,
usually, he burnt it”
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
Near the beginning when his father is making him breakfast
Ursula Monkton made meatloaf
for dinner that evening, and I would
not eat it
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
Shortly after Ursula arrives. After she kept him inside for a day
My father came home, and dinner
was served. A thick vegetable soup,
then roast chicken and new
potatoes with frozen peas
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
First meal Ursula cooks for the family
The old woman gave me a lump
of honeycomb, from the
Hempstocks’ own beehive, on a
chipped saucer, and poured a
little cream over it from a jug. I
ate it with a spoon, chewing the
wax like gum, letting the honey
flow into my mouth, sweet and
sticky with an aftertaste of
wildflowers
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
The second time going to the Hempstocks after people start having problems with money. Old Mrs. Hempstock makes him this
It’s funny. For a moment, I thought there were two of you. Isn’t that odd?
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
when the grown narrator is at the Hempstock farm at the end of the book
You’re growing a new heart, for a start
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
Ginnie Hempstock says this to the grown narrator about him doing better and being worthy of Lettie’s sacrifice
A flash of resentment. It’s hard enough being alive, trying to survive
in the world and find your place in it, to do the things you need to do
to get by, without wondering if the thing you just did, whatever it was,
was worth someone having … given up her life. It wasn’t fair
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Neil Gaiman
The narrator thinks this as Ginnie drives him home after Lettie dies
Rosie ran between two patches of tomatoes, her
heart working more rambunctiously than she had
ever known it to. How lucky it was that Aunt Taka
and Uncle Gimpachi had come tonight, though, how
very lucky. Otherwise she might not have really kept
her half-promise to meet Jesus Carrasco. Jesus was
going to be a senior in September at the same
school she went to…
Seventeen Syllables
Hisaye Yamamoto
As Rosie runs to meet Jesus in the shed
a wooden frame with a canvas
roof and three canvas walls
Seventeen Syllables
Hisaye Yamamoto
Description of the shed rosie meets Jesus in
The frame was
scalloped and gilt
Seventeen Syllables
Hisaye Yamamoto
The painting Rosie’s mother wins for her Haikus
Nancy’s dream-gardens came to
life with the coming of the rains,
and blossomed. Beautiful
hibiscus and allamanda hedges in
brilliant red and yellow marked
out the carefully tended school
compound from the rank
neighbourhood bushes
Dead Men’s Path
Chinua Achebe
When Michael and Nancy start getting settled in at the school. Even the flowers encourage segregation.
The whole purpose of our school … is
to eradicate just such beliefs as that.
Dead men do not require footpaths.
Dead Men’s Path
Chinua Achebe
When he is talking to the village priest after closing the ancestral footpath.
he seemed alone, absolutely alone in the
universe. A bit of wreckage in the mid-Atlantic
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Herman Melville
The narrator describing Bartleby
…like the last column of some ruined temple
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Herman Melville
The narrator describing Bartleby
Strangely huddled at the end of
the wall—his knees drawn up, and
lying on his side, his head touching
the cold stones—I saw the wasted
Bartleby. But nothing stirred
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Herman Melville
The narrator seeing Bartleby dead in prison
Going up stairs to my old haunt,
there was Bartleby silently sitting
upon the banister at the landing
Bartleby, the Scrivener
Herman Melville
After the narrator has moved buildings and the new owner of the old building brings him back to get rid of Bartleby
I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you.
Omelas sounds in my words like a fairy tale, long ago and far
away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined
it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the occasion
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Ursula Le Guin
As the narrator describes Omelas. Getting the readers involved with the understanding of Omelas
But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes you as
goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add
an orgy. If an orgy would help, don’t hesitate
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Ursula Le Guin
As the narrator describes Omelas. Getting the readers involved with the understanding of Omelas
Do you believe?
Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me
describe one more thing…
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Ursula Le Guin
After describing the beauty and wonder of Omelas, LeGuin changes the subject to explain what is behind the positivity
The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
Ursula Le Guin
LeGuin explains the people who walk away from Omelas and how a society in which individuals refuse to accept arbitrary suffering is unthinkable
thank you for returning our
lost sheep
Muggins Here
David Mitchell
When Pearl returns Clive to the care home
Just treating people like
you’d want to be treated if the shoe was
on the other foot
Muggins Here
David Mitchell
When Sandra tells Pearl she has a gift she humbly replies this:
She sat at the window
watching the evening invade the
avenue. Her head was leaned
against the window curtains
and in her nostrils was the
odour of dusty cretonne. She
was tired
Eveline
James Joyce
As Eveline watches the street from her window.
But in her new home, in a distant unknown country, it
would not be like that. Then she would be married. People would treat her with respect then.
She would not be treated as her mother had been. //
Even now, though she was over nineteen, she
sometimes felt herself in danger of her father’s
violence
Eveline
James Joyce
Thinking about her new life with Frank and how it would be better than her work and her family here.
She stood up in a sudden impulse
of terror. Escape! She must escape!
Frank would save her. He would
give her life, perhaps love, too. But
she wanted to live. Why should she
be unhappy? She had a right to
happiness. Frank would take her in
his arms, fold her in his arms. He
would save her
Eveline
James Joyce
The last thing Eveline says before leaving to the station. Right after a memory of her mother that shakes her.
All the seas of
the world tumbled about her heart
Eveline
James Joyce
As Eveline is about to get on the ship she starts to let the sea register with her inner conflict about abandoning Frank
And after all the weather was ideal
The Garden Party
Katherine Mansfield
Very first line of the story. “in medias res”
The gardener had been up since
dawn, mowing the lawns and
sweeping them
The Garden Party
Katherine Mansfield
Describing the setting for the garden party
Oh, how extraordinarily nice
workmen were, she thought
The garden Party
Katherine Mansfield
Laura meeting the workmen who are putting up the marquee
Why couldn’t she have
workmen for friends rather than the silly boys she danced
with and who came to Sunday night supper? She would
get on much better with men like these
The garden Party
Katherine Mansfield
Laura meeting the workmen who are putting up the marquee
…quite by chance, the first thing she saw was this
charming girl in the mirror, in her black hat trimmed
with gold daisies and a long black velvet ribbon.
Never had she imagined she could look like that. Is
mother right, she thought. And now she hoped her
mother was right. Am I being extravagant? Perhaps
it was extravagant. Just for a moment she had
another glimpse of that poor woman and those little
children, and the body being carried into the house.
But it all seemed blurred, unreal, like a picture in
the newspaper. I’ll remember it again after the
party’s over, she decided.
The Garden Party
Katherine Mansfield
AS Mrs. Sheridan is trying to convince Laura she is being ridiculous and then she is easily distracted by a hat
All sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind
An Upheaval
Anton Chekhov
When Mashenka hears about her things being searched, she starts to think about all of the things that they might accuse her of and do to her
Never in her life had she been subject to such an
outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted … She,
well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was
suspected of theft; she had been searched like a street walker!
An Upheaval
Anton Chekhov
After Mashenka is searched she is very offended
a stout, broad-shouldered,
uncouth woman with thick black eyebrows, a faintly
perceptible moustache, and red hands, who was
exactly like a plain, illiterate cook in face and manners
An Upheaval
Anton Chekhov
The narrator describes Fedosya Vassilyevna, the lady of the house. Only the upper class is described but they are described negatively
She was so disgusted with Fedosya
Vassilyevna, who was so obsessed by her
illnesses and her supposed aristocratic
rank, that everything in the world seemed
to have become coarse and unattractive
because this woman was living in it
An Upheaval
Anton Chekhov
After Mashenka leaves dinner she is very upset
It always seems to me, when I recall this scene,
that Cynthia turns very gracefully toward me, then turns all around in the water—making me think of a ballerina on point—and spreads her arms in a gesture of the stage. “Dis-ap-peared!” Cynthia was naturally graceful, and she did take dancing lessons, so these movements may have been as I have described. She did say “Disappeared” after looking around the pool, but the strangely artificial style of speech and gesture, the lack of urgency is more likely my invention.
Miles City, Montana
Alice Munro
The narrator recalling her memory of not being able to find her daughter in the pool. This shows her unreliability.
I haven’t seen Andrew in years…
Miles City, Montana
Alice Munro
The narrator describing Andrew and how they fight and then says this, inferring a future divorce. Marital conflict
Since the firm folded,’ he said, ‘I have a
little more time on my hands.’ He
laughed again, rather strangely. For a
moment his face looked almost gentle. ‘A
little more time
A Family Supper
Kazuo Ishiguro
When the narrator’s father is showing him around the house. Foreshadowing to the potential murder.
