Book Notes Plus is a wonderful blog written by library patron Gerald Lively. Here is the May quiz from his blog, which we are sure you’ll enjoy!
Below you will find passages from a number of different works – fiction, nonfiction, plays, short stories, etc. Can you name the works and their authors? In some cases I have changed the original format of the text in order to make it fit the format of my blog, and have omitted names that would give away the source of the quotes. You can find the answers on my Quiz Answers page.
1) “The priest rose to take the crucifix; then she stretched forward her neck as one who is athirst, and gluing her lips to the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it with all her expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that she had ever given. Then he recited the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam, dipped his right thumb in the oil, and began to give extreme unction. First upon the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then upon the nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm breeze and amorous odors; then upon the mouth, that had uttered lies, that had curled with pride and cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands that had delighted in sensual touches; and finally upon the soles of the feet, so swift of yore, when she was running to satisfy her desires, and that would now walk no more.”
2) “An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you do.”
3) “Sure,” the Boss had said, lounging easy, “sure, there’s some graft, but there’s just enough to make the wheels turn without squeaking. And remember this. There never was a machine rigged up by man didn’t represent some loss of energy.”
4) “If you bethink yourself of any crime unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace, solicit for it straight . . . I would not kill thy unprepared spirit. No, heaven forfend! I would not kill thy soul.”
5) “I will proceed with my history, telling the story as I go along of small cities, of men no less than of great. For most of those which were great once are small today; and those which used to be small were great in my own time. Knowing, therefore, that human prosperity never abides long in the same place, I shall pay attention to both alike.”
6) “Has there ever been a child like Eva? Yes, there have been; but their names are always on grave-stones, and their sweet smiles, their heavenly eyes, their singular words and ways, are among the buried treasures of yearning hearts.”
7) “I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place, and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her.”
8) “Blind who now has eyes, beggar who now is rich, he will grope his way toward a foreign soil, a stick tapping before him step by step. Revealed at last, brother and father both to the children he embraces, to his mother son and husband both–he sowed the loins his father sowed, he spilled his father’s blood!”
9) “Leaving New Orleans also frightened me considerably. Outside of the City limits the heart of darkness, the true wasteland begins.”
10) “ ‘Which is it today,’ I asked, ‘morphine or cocaine?’ He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. ‘It is cocaine,’ he said, ‘a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?’ ”
11) “Well, I’m your guardian. We both know that, so there’s no need of much discussion there. Now, your father says you’re to be reared as a Protestant. I’ve no objection to that, I’m sure, although it does seem a shame that you should be deprived of the exquisite mysteries of some of the eastern religions. However, your father always was a stick-in-the-mud about some things. Not that I mean to speak ill of my own brother.”
12) “Was this the face that launch’d a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss.”
13) “A dry martini,” he said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet . . . Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
14) “Aro paid no attention to our exchange. He leaned his head to one side, fascinated. ‘I hear her strange heart,’ he murmured with an almost musical lilt to his words. ‘I smell her strange scent.’ Then his hazy eyes shifted to me. ‘In truth, young Bella, immortality does become you most extraordinarily,’ he said. ‘It is as if you were designed for this life.’ ”
15) “Old Man Warner snorted. ‘Pack of crazy fools,’ he said. ‘Listening to the young folks, nothing’s good enough for them. Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting to go back to living in caves, nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon.” First thing you know, we’d all be eating stewed chickenweed and acorns. There’s always been a lottery,’ he added petulantly. ‘Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up there joking with everybody.’ ”
16) “Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die!—and now—again!—hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!— . . . ‘Villains,’ I shrieked, ‘dissemble no more! I admit the deed!—tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous heart!’ ”
17) “ ‘Well,’ she said. ‘You know everything now, M. Poirot. What are you going to do about it? If it must all come out, can’t you lay the blame upon me and me only? I would have stabbed that man twelve times willingly.’ ”
18) “. . . He was afraid for the minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though _____ had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose’s business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too and, at the bottom of his cold heart, he was afraid.”
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