(This post was published by Readers.com as an infographic tabulating 15 memorable and though-provoking quotes from some of the most popular and all-time favorite characters from literature. We have published it with some additions of our own.)
Oscar Wilde once said, “If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.” This is especially true for the great books that are immortalized in paper and print for countless generations to enjoy.
People fall crazy in love with characters in books, often because they embody an ideal which they fundamentally identify with. When these characters express something particularly moving or thought-provoking, we keep their words in our hearts, and repeat them whenever we get the chance.
Actions speak louder than words, but quotes are without a doubt more repeatable. They’re easily shareable, whether it’s vocally, on a shirt, on your bedroom wall, or even on a quilt. We looked at classic books to find some of the most beloved characters and their thought-provoking quotes that will live forever in print and in our hearts.
“Guy don’t need no sense to be a nice fella. Seems to me sometimes it jus’ works the other way around. Take a real smart guy and he ain’t hardly ever a nice fella.” – Slim, Of Mice and Men
“Honest people don’t hide their deeds.” – Ellen “Nelly” Dean, Wuthering Heights
“Why am I trying to become what I don’t want to be … when all I want is out there, waiting for me the minute I say I know who I am.” – Biff Loman, Death of a Salesman
“Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing.” – Randle McMurphy, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
“Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs.” – Helen Burns, Jane Eyre
“What is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?” – Adam Ewing, Cloud Atlas
“How little we know of what there is to know.” – Robert Jordan, For Whom The Bell Tolls
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” – Hamlet, Hamlet
“The thing is – fear can’t hurt you any more than a dream.” – Jack, Lord of the Flies
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly — they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.” – Helmholtz Watson, Brave New World
“There’s only one rule you need to remember: laugh at everything and forget everybody else! It sound egotistical, but it’s actually the only cure for those suffering from self-pity.” – Anne Frank, The Diary of Anne Frank
“It was times like these when i thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived” – Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, To Kill A Mockingbird
“My advice is, never do to-morrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.” – Mr. Micawber, David Copperfield
“I can’t go back to yesterday – because I was a different person then.” – Alice, Alice in Wonderland
“I don’t like work–no man does–but I like what is in the work–the chance to find yourself. Your own reality–for yourself not for others–what no other man can ever know. They can only see the mere show, and never can tell what it really means.” – Charles Marlow, Heart of Darkness
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