Category Archives: Thursday Quotables

Thursday Quotables: Thanksgiving

Posted in Thursday Quotables by
thanksgiving
Back when I was doing a weekly Thursday Quotables post, this is what I came up with for Thanksgiving. And then revisiting Buffy’s Thanksgiving made me so happy that I just kept reposting it each year. Apparently I skipped it last year — but now it’s back! Here’s my very Buffy celebration of Thanksgiving quippiness.

Reblogging my Thanksgiving Thursday Quotables from last year (and the year before), since I really don’t think I can do better than celebrating with Buffy!

best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1

 In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d depart book-world for this week’s Thursday Quotables post and turn instead to one of my very favorite Thanksgiving moments, the “Pangs” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

pangs

Willow: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It’s a sham. It’s all about death

Buffy: It *is* a sham. But it’s a sham with yams. It’s a yam sham.

Willow: You’re not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one.

pangs 2

Giles – “…It’s very common for Indian spirits to change to animal form.”
Buffy – “Yeah, well it’s plenty uncommon for me to freeze up during a fight. I mean, I had the guy, I was ready for the takedown and I stopped. And ‘Native American’.”
Giles – “Sorry?”
Buffy – “We don’t say ‘Indian’.”
Giles – “Oh, right. Yes, yes. Um, always behind on the terms. Still trying not to refer to you lot as ‘Bloody Colonials’.”

pangs3

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving, filled with friends, family, laughter… and pie.

Thursday Quotables: Competence by Gail Carriger

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines will be, and you’re invited to join in!
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve done a Thursday Quotables post. Something (looking at you, Gail Carriger!) must have inspired me this week!
Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:

 

Competence by Gail Carriger
(published July 17, 2018)

I’m listening to this utterly delightful and profoundly silly new book by Gail Carriger, the 3rd book in her Custard Protocol series. Here, the adventurous crew of the Spotted Custard dirigible, makes their way from Singapore to South America on a trip filled with hazardous aetherosphere currents, navigational challenges, rogue prisoners, and unexpected romance. The audiobook is just so darn cute and lovable, and today in particular, I found myself laughing out loud in public places while listening. So there’s that.

So… this angry rebuke from an unfriendly member of the engineering crew cracked me up:

“Well, there’s no need to throw Italian mathematicians at me.”

 

(Maybe you had to be there…)

This book, as with the others in this ‘verse, places a great deal of importance on fashion, and particularly headwear:

Primose couldn’t help herself, her eyes were drawn to the top of her brother’s head. A sort of blue velvet and silver-embroidered flowerpot perched there. It sported a long silken tassel out the top which trailed down one side to tickle his temple.

“Percy, what are you wearing? Is that a Turkish lounging cap? It’s middy! We’re outside. There are so many thing wrong with that right now, and I can’t even begin — “

The book and the entire series are terrifically charming, and should not be missed! Here’s the synopsis (via Goodreads)… and I’ll share more thoughts once I’ve finished the audiobook!

From New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger comes the delightful sequel to Imprudence.

Accidentally abandoned!

All alone in Singapore, proper Miss Primrose Tunstell must steal helium to save her airship, the Spotted Custard, in a scheme involving a lovesick werecat and a fake fish tail.

When she uncovers rumors of a new kind of vampire, Prim and the Custard crew embark on a mission to Peru. There, they encounter airship pirates and strange atmospheric phenomena, and are mistaken for representatives of the Spanish Inquisition. Forced into extreme subterfuge (and some rather ridiculous outfits) Prim must also answer three of life’s most challenging questions:

Can the perfect book club give a man back his soul?

Will her brother ever stop wearing his idiotic velvet fez?

And can the amount of lard in Christmas pudding save an entire species?

What lines have you loved this week? Please share!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Thursday Quotables (on a Friday): Rise: A Newsflesh Collection by Mira Grant

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines will be, and you’re invited to join in!

After a lengthy radio silence, I’m returning to Thursday Quotables! Although I’m not doing TQ posts on a weekly basis, I’ll still be popping in and out when I have some great lines that I’m dying to share.

Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotables:
Rise: A Newsflesh Collection by Mira Grant
(published 2016)

After finishing the Newsflesh trilogy earlier in the week, I really hated the idea of leaving it all behind. Luckily, there’s Rise, a collection of short fiction set in the Newsflesh world. I’m only about 100 pages into this 600+ page paperback… but I’m loving it, of course. I hadn’t actually planned to do another TQ post this week, but then I came across the passage below, and knew that I had to share it.

Let me preface this by saying that I’m that high school geek who actually loved A Tale of Two Cities and memorized the opening lines (“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…) just for fun. And yes, I can still recite most of it, all these years later.

With that as background, here’s a passage from Rise that jumped out at me:

It began nowhere. It began everywhere. It began without warning; it began with all the warning in the world. It could have been prevented a thousand times over. There was nothing that anyone could have done.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Thursday Quotables: Deadline (Newsflesh trilogy, #2)

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines will be, and you’re invited to join in!

After a lengthy radio silence, I’m returning to Thursday Quotables! Although I’m not doing TQ posts on a weekly basis, I’ll still be popping in and out when I have some great lines that I’m dying to share. And this week’s Quotables are pretty terrific!

Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotables:
Deadline by Mira Grant
(published 2011)

I’m loving the Newsflesh trilogy! I’m on the 2nd book, and it’s amazing. The plot is startling and surprisingly moving — and, you know, filled with zombies. I love the writing, which manages to be funny even in the most horrific of situations. Here are a few choice selections:

Road trips must have been pretty boring before the zombies came.

There’s nothing funnier than seeing somebody who thinks of the infected as somebody else’s problem realize that they, too, could join the mindless zombie hordes.

About zombies on the roof of a building that they couldn’t have accessed without intervention:

“Meaning what?” I asked, picking myself up and resuming the trek toward the third floor.

Meaning this “outbreak” is somebody’s idea of cleaning house.

“Somebody had to put them there,” said Dave, unknowingly supporting George’s statement. “There’s no way our building is generating spontaneous zombies.”

I just find it interesting that kids apparently used to cry when Bambi’s mother died. George and I both held our breaths, and then cheered when she didn’t reanimate and try to eat her son.

At least no one was screaming; that meant we’d all probably managed to live through the night. Survival is always a nice thing to wake up to.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

An update on Thursday Quotables

Posted in Blogging, Thursday Quotables by

Hi there, lovely readers!

Several years ago, I started up a weekly feature here at Bookshelf Fantasies called Thursday Quotables:

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

For anyone who pays attention to such things, you may have noticed that I’ve really slacked off when it comes to weekly posts. In fact, I just realized that my last Thursday Quotables post was for Thankgsgiving — and even then, it was a repost of a holiday favorite, not a brand-new “quotable” discovery.

So what’s going on?

Well, the answer is simply that I’ve lost a little motivation when it comes to doing TQ posts according to a fixed weekly schedule. I’m finding that when I come across lines or quote that I love in whatever books I’m reading, I tend to go ahead and include them in my review posts. Or else, I get so caught up when I’m reading an amazing book that I don’t stop to highlight or flag the parts I want to come back to, because I’m focused on the reading itself and not thinking about posting about the reading.

At this point, I think I need to acknowledge that I’m not going to keep up with Thursday Quotables as a weekly blogging event here on my blog. When inspiration strikes, I’m sure I’ll continue to do occasional TQ posts, but I’d rather not feel like I need to hold myself to a schedule.

For those of you who participate in Thursday Quotables… well, great! Keep going! Come back and share your links with me, either here or on social media, whenever you feel like it. I’d love to see what you’re up to.

This isn’t good-bye for Thursday Quotables… maybe it’s more like “see ya when I see ya”!

Of course, if anyone is interested in “adopting” Thursday Quotables and taking it on as a new host, send me a message and let me know. Meanwhile, I’ll continue my TQ posts… when I feel like it.

Ah, the freedom!

Thursday Quotables: Thanksgiving

Posted in Thursday Quotables by
thanksgiving
Welcome back to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!

Reblogging my Thanksgiving Thursday Quotables from last year (and the year before), since I really don’t think I can do better than celebrating with Buffy!

best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1best-thanksgiving-clipart-black-and-white-1

 In honor of Thanksgiving, I thought I’d depart book-world for this week’s Thursday Quotables post and turn instead to one of my very favorite Thanksgiving moments, the “Pangs” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

pangs

Willow: Buffy, earlier you agreed with me about Thanksgiving. It’s a sham. It’s all about death

Buffy: It *is* a sham. But it’s a sham with yams. It’s a yam sham.

Willow: You’re not gonna jokey-rhyme your way out of this one.

pangs 2

Giles – “…It’s very common for Indian spirits to change to animal form.”
Buffy – “Yeah, well it’s plenty uncommon for me to freeze up during a fight. I mean, I had the guy, I was ready for the takedown and I stopped. And ‘Native American’.”
Giles – “Sorry?”
Buffy – “We don’t say ‘Indian’.”
Giles – “Oh, right. Yes, yes. Um, always behind on the terms. Still trying not to refer to you lot as ‘Bloody Colonials’.”

Wishing you all a very happy Thanksgiving, filled with friends, family, laughter… and pie.

pangs3

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Click on the linky button (look for the cute froggie face) below to add your link.
  • After you link up, I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

Thursday Quotables: Reflections (Indexing, #2)… two weeks in a row!

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!
A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!
Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:
Indexing: Reflections by Seanan McGuire
(published 2016)

Because I’m “reading” this series via audiobook, it’s taking me quite a while. So, for the second week in a row, I just have to share a few passages from Reflections, which has been keeping me riveted (and occasionally snorting with laughter) on my morning commutes. First, an ominous passage:

The air was cold, and the wind tasted of apples, and something was very, very wrong.

Ooh. Chills, right?

And a moment that made me laugh, courtesy of my favorite character Sloane, who is tough as nails and talks like a Valley Girl:

I produced my badge from my pocket and held it up for the camera to see. “Agent Sloane Winters, ATI Management Bureau. We’re with the United States Government; we’re allowed to punch people if we want to.”

“Please tell me that’s not going to be our new motto,” said Demi.

And finally:

I glared at her for a moment before I started striding toward the entrance to the maze. “I hate you,” I said.

“I know,” said Ciara, following me.

“I’m going to play jump rope with your intestines.”

“Won’t that be fun for both of us.”

“Don’t make fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Thursday Quotables: Reflections (Indexing, #2)

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!
A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!
Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:
Indexing: Reflections by Seanan McGuire
(published 2016)

I’m thoroughly enjoying my audiobook adventures with the Indexing series by Seanan McGuire (you can check out my review of book #1 here), and thought I’d share a funny, don’t f-with-me little snippet for this week’s Thursday Quotable.

Sloane sauntered into the observation room like she didn’t have a care in the world, and scowled when she saw the coffee cup in my hand. “I came for coffee,” she said. “If you have consumed all the coffee, I am going to straight-up fucking murder you, and drink a latte out of your skull.”

I get it. I have those mornings sometimes too.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Thursday Quotables: Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!
A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!
Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:
Guts: The Anatomy of The Walking Dead by Paul Vigna
(published 2017)

I’m actually very late to the party when it comes to The Walking Dead and its fandom. I only started watching the series this past spring, but after some marathon binges, I’m all caught up and completely hooked. Naturally, I couldn’t resist this new release. Please excuse me for fangirling out over Guts!

For my Quotables this week, first, something I just thought was funny:

The Walking Dead’s zombies are mostly “live,” which means they are actors under makeup playing out their horror in real time, though for certain shots the crew will add computer-generated effects (they did not, for instance, cut the actress Melissa Cowan in half for her role as Bicycle Girl).

Sorry about the sick humor. This makes me laugh.

And here’s a paragraph that helps to explain why so many of us love this show so, so much:

That deeper level is something that comes after special effects, after jump scares and exploding bodies. It’s something that can be explored not through the dead, but only through the living. What makes The Walking Dead work is that it shows people who are broken, afraid, courageous, insane, upright, duplicitous, noble, foolhardy, and just plain hardy as all hell. In a word, it explores what’s in a person’s heart.

And finally, the author quotes a writer for a TWD fansite:

“A show like The Walking Dead tells us that no matter what happens, if you are loyal to the people you love, […] you can conquer anything.”

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Thursday Quotables: Marine Biology

Posted in Thursday Quotables by

quotation-marks4

Welcome to Thursday Quotables! This weekly feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week.  Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines of the week will be, and you’re invited to join in!
A little programming note: While I’m mostly back to weekly postings, I find I’m not at 100% yet! I’ll continue to post Thursday Quotables most weeks. If I happen to skip a week when you have a post to share, feel free to link up to whichever TQ post here is most recent. Many thanks!
Onward with this week’s Thursday Quotable:

 

Marine Biology by Gail Carriger
(published 2010)

When there’s too much seriousness in my life, I know I can reach for a Gail Carriger story to lift my spirits. I originally read Marine Biology when it came out, but as there’s now a related novel, The Sumage Solution, I figured this was a good time to read it again. Marine Biology is a cute, sweet, supernatural story — set in the modern world, not Carriger’s trademark steampunk Victorian society, but full of her wit and cleverness.

Here’s the opening paragraph, which makes more sense if you keep in mind that the main character is a gay werewolf scientist:

The problem, Alec thought gloomily, swishing a test-tube full of seawater, is that I’m unexpectedly alive. To be unexpectedly dead would be pleasingly simplistic. After all, he made up the statistic on the spot so that he would sound more learned in his own head, half of all deaths are unexpected. One is, to a certain degree, prepared to die unexpectedly. But when one expects to die at eighteen and instead finds oneself unexpectedly alive at twenty-four, there’s nothing for it but to be confused about everything.

What lines made you laugh, cry, or gasp this week? Do tell!

If you’d like to participate in Thursday Quotables, it’s really simple:

  • Write a Thursday Quotables post on your blog. Try to pick something from whatever you’re reading now. And please be sure to include a link back to Bookshelf Fantasies in your post (http://www.bookshelffantasies.com), if you’d be so kind!
  • Add your Thursday Quotables post link in the comments section below… and I’d love it if you’d leave a comment about my quote for this week too.
  • Be sure to visit other linked blogs to view their Thursday Quotables, and have fun!

391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1391px-quotation_marks_svg1

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save