Updated 2007.11.09
I read a lot of books, and these are a few of my favorites.
Fiction
Although I've included only one book here to represent each author, you can assume in most cases that I also enjoy other books by the author.
| The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky |
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"You weren't quite joking, that is true. This idea is not yet resolved in your heart and torments it. But a martyr, too, sometimes likes to toy with his despair, also from despair, as it were. For the time you, too, are toying, out of despair, with your magazine articles and drawing-room discussions, without believing in your dialectics and smirking at them with your heart aching inside you...The question is not resolved in you, and there lies your great grief, for it urgently demands resolution..."
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| The Call of Cthulhu and other Weird Stories H. P. Lovecraft |
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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.
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| Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut |
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Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before... He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way.
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| Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl |
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"Oh, my sainted aunt! Don't mention that disgusting stuff in front of me! Do you know what breakfast cereal is made of? It's made of all those little curly wooden shavings you find in pencil sharpeners!"
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| Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Philip K. Dick |
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"So I left the TV sound off and I sat down at my mood organ and I experimented. And I finally found a setting for despair…So I put it on my schedule for twice a month; I think that's a reasonable amount of time to feel hopeless about everything..."
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| Dune Frank Herbert |
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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
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| Ender's Game Orson Scott Card |
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"There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher."
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| Fevre Dream George R. R. Martin |
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"They're sinners, and they got to ride that boat forever, that black boat with the red carpets and the empty mirrors, all up and down the river, never touching port, no sir."
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| The Fountainhead Ayn Rand |
"Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us."
"But I don't think of you."
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| Gardens of the Moon Steven Erikson |
“Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?”
The Imass shrugged before replying. “I think of futility, Adjunct.”
“Do all Imass think about futility?”
“No. Few think at all.”
“Why is that?”
The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her. “Because Adjunct, it is futile.”
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| The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams |
"I'd far rather be happy than right any day."
"And are you?"
"No. And that's where it all falls down, of course."
"Pity," said Arthur with sympathy. "It sounded like quite a good life-style otherwise."
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| The House with a Clock in Its Walls John Bellairs |
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He had thought a couple times of hiding in the secret passageway, but he was afraid of getting caught. A passage that is entered through a china cupboard full of rattling dishes is not as secret as one might wish. And if some secret spring lock snapped shut on him, he would need to scream his way out, and then there would have to be explanations.
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| A Light in the Attic Shel Silverstein |
I'd rather play tennis than go to the dentist.
I'd rather play soccer than go to the doctor.
I'd rather play Hurk than go to work.
Hurk? Hurk? What's Hurk? I don't know, but it must be better than work.
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| The Neverending Story Michael Ende |
If you have never wept bitter tears because a wonderful story has come to an end and you must take your leave of characters with whom you have shared so many adventures, whom you have loved and admired, for whom you have hoped and feared, and without whose company life seems empty and meaningless -
If such things have not been part of your own experience, you probably won't understand what Bastian did next.
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| The Phantom Tollbooth Norton Juster |
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No one paid any attention to how things looked, and as they moved faster and faster everything grew uglier and dirtier, and as everything grew uglier and dirtier they moved faster and faster, and at last a very strange thing began to happen. Because nobody cared, the city slowly began to disappear. Day by day the buildings grew fainter and fainter, and the streets faded away, until at last it was entirely invisible. There was nothing to see at all.
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| Red Dwarf Grant Naylor |
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Behind him he heard the bolts overshoot a turn, and their low humming throb dimmed in volume. He'd bought himself a couple of seconds; seconds he badly needed. He pulled out a mirror and checked his hair. It was still perfect.
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| The Sandman: World's End Neil Gaiman |
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I think I fell in love with her, a little bit. Isn't that dumb? But it was like I knew her. Like she was my oldest, dearest friend. The kind of person you can tell anything to, no matter how bad, and they'll still love you, because they know you.
I wanted to go with her. I wanted her to notice me. And then she stopped walking. Under the moon, she stopped. And looked at us. She looked at me. Maybe she was trying to tell me something; I don't know. She probably didn't even know I was there.
But I'll always love her. All my life.
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| Watership Down Richard Adams |
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“My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here.”
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Others I may add to the above list eventually:
William Sleator
C. S. Lewis
David Eddings
Dr. Seuss
Douglas Thayer
Edgar Allen Poe
Fred Saberhagen
Glen Cook
Lois McMaster Bujold
Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
Mary Shelley
Robert Jordan
Walter M. Miller Jr.
William Goldman
Comics
Berke Breathed Bloom County
Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes
Dan Piraro Bizarro
Gary Larson The Far Side
Neil Gaiman The Sandman
Scott McCloud Understanding Comics
Winsor McCay Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend / Little Nemo in Slumberland
Nonfiction
List forthcoming--eventually.
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