An internal history, in quotations.

[cahn]

All right, one more list, and then back to the regularly scheduled ranting.

Here are ten Quotes That Are Important to Me. I was inspired to do this by a discussion with nolly-- I suspect that some of these are easier to get (than the last batch) if you are familiar with the work in question, or guessable if you know me, though I consider some of these much more obscure than the last batch. (D took it and got only 3 for sure and guessed another 2.) In chronological order of my first exposure to them:

1. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye... You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed."

2. As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown but there wasn't much else for us to learn, except possibly algebra.

3. "And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet would I remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content."

4. In speaking of this desire for our own faroff country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you - the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.

5. (for extra credit, what is the poem based on)
Thou indeed art just, Lord, if I contend
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just.
Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must
Disappointment all I endeavor end?

6. ...Though Camelot is built, though the king sit on the throne,
yet the wood in the wild west of the shapes and names

probes everywhere through the frontier of head and hand;
everywhere the light through the great leaves is blown
on your substantial flesh, and everywhere your glory frames.

7. And straightway the father of the child cried out, and said with tears, Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.

8. Tri lloneit prytwen yd aetham ni idi.
nam seith ny dyrreith o gaer sidi.

And because it's not fair otherwise, here's the proper translation:
Three fullnesses of Prydwen we went into it.
Except seven, none rose up from the Fortress of the Mound.

And to be perfectly fair, here's the "popular" translation (and the one I knew until my post-college-year):
Three shiploads of Prydwen we went to it;
except for seven, none returned from Caer Siddi.

9. "...libero, dritto e sano e' tuo arbitrio,
e fallo fora non fare a suo senno:

per ch'io te sovra te corono e mitrio."

("...Here your will is upright, free, and whole,
and you would be in error not to heed

whatever your own impulse prompts you to:
lord of yourself I crown and mitre you.")

10. "The one thing you can't trade for your heart's desire is your heart."

Answers, with possibly way too much commentary, in a couple of days.

(edited to change dumb reference to wrong person, sorry...)

Comments

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

Quick look over breakfast, without even Google much less the bookshelf:

1 I'm sure I've seen before, but have no idea where.

2 To Kill a Mockingbird. (And I remember saying something very similar at the same age, only I'd never heard of algebra. Typing was the one thing I knew I couldn't (yet) do.)

3 One of my faves, too. Ged, Ursula K Le Guin - now, what was the title of that book? Wizard of Earthsea.... he's speaking to Tenar... or was it to Arren? It hardly matters, TBH, the quote stands alone, and he's really speaking to himself.

5,6 no idea

7 Trying to remember which Bible story it is. New Testament, anyway.

8 Ooh! Yes, I recognised it from a few of the words before you gave the translation. "The Spoils of Annwn". Written by Taliesin (probably). Also used extensively in Patricia Kennealy's "Copper Crown" series.

9 no idea. Given that it's in Italian, I wouldn't expect to know it, but it looks like something I'd like to learn more about.

10 It's one of those Vorkosigan quotes, Miles rather than Cordelia I expect (though he's probably quoting her). But I can't remember context.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

Saint Exupery! Number One. I freaking love that quote. Uh, I think it may form the backbone of most of the stories I have ever written. It's one of those lines that pose a thousand questions. Why have you tamed this, how wild was it before, how well will the wild thing transition, what in God's name will your responsbilities be? And what fear and cost comes with being unique in all the world to another person.

Uh, the others I don't know.

[julianyap.livejournal.com]

1. That's The Little Prince right? My brother's favorite book.
9. That looks like Dante, it's too happy for Inferno, so I'm going to say... Purgatorio?

That's it for me of the unanswered ones... love quote 6.

[nolly.livejournal.com]

1 is The Little Prince.
2 I couldn't place, though I saw the answer in comments, so now I know what to reread, since I've read it many times, but not in a long time.
3 is from one of the Earthsea books, but I don't remember which one. One of the original trilogy, but I read them back to back, and when I do that with a series, they end up run together as one work in my memory.
4 feels like C.S. Lewis, but I don't know which book.
I'm not sure what 5 is actually from, but I think the original is in Proverbs. Or possibly Ecclesiates. I might know this if I hadn't stayed up late watching Heroes last night. :)
6 I don't know, other than being clearly Arthurian, but I never goot into the Arthur mythos like you did. (Do NOT< whatever you do, attempt to read Meg Cabot's Avalon High, by the way. It's horrid. Though not as bad as the book I snagged from a coffeeshop last night, which is Bulwer-Lytton material.)
7 -- NT, one of the gospels, but I'd have to look up the details.
8, no idea.
9 is Dante, but I don't know which part.
10 I think I ought to know but can't place.

Also, menolly isn't me; she got here first, alas.