Best quote from a novel
Wow. I have read quite a bit of Oscar Wilde, among many other witty fellows. How the hell am I supposed to pick a single quote as “best”? I used to collect quotations from novels, films, and other sources, so you’d think it’d be easy, but really, it’s the opposite: I have a wealth of fabulous quotes to choose from.
So, here is a sampling:
“I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
“Wherefore do ye toil; is it not that ye may live and be happy? And if ye toil only that ye may toil more, when shall happiness find you? Ye toil to live, but is not life made of beauty and song? … Toil without song is like a weary journey without an end. Were not death more pleasing?” – HP Lovecraft, “The Quest of Iranon”
“For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors and laugh at them in our turn?” – Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
There are too many to list from the Discworld books. There’s a big collection at L-Space.