By now you know why I’m doing this.

Well, you know partly why. The real reason I am doing it is not because I was invited, though that helped. It is because certain utterances have stuck in my mind, guided my thinking, provided me with insight over the years. And without fail, when I extemporize them, I forget their precise wording. That’s no good, because a quote symbol must mean: “these were the actual words, perfect or imperfect.”

“And don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.”

–Leroy (Satchel) Paige as told to David Lipman, Maybe I’ll Pitch Forever

“The summer wore on and it proved a dismal season for the Imperial marshals. On August 1 Brune was caught and killed. On August 2 Ney was recognized and arrested. In October Murat appeared in the south and was promptly stood against a wall and shot. Two months later Ney was dead, the victim of a ruthless persecution by men who were unfit to polish his boots.”

–R.F. Delderfield, Napoleon’s Marshals

“The ruffians gave back. Scaring Breeland peasants, and bullying bewildered hobbits, had been their work. Fearless hobbits with bright swords and grim faces were a great surprise.”

–J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

As mentioned yesterday, this is my participation in this event at the suggestion of noted review blogger ajoobacats. The idea is to come up with three quotes a day, and suggest participation to three other bloggers, for each of three days. I have decided just to do the first part, since I’m good at book quotes but lousy at asking people to do anything.

“For years I have with reluctant heart withheld from publication this already completed book: my obligation to those still living outweighed my obligation to the dead. But now that State Security has seized the book anyway, I have no alternative but to publish it immediately.”

–Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, back cover

“‘We mustn’t run short of filmbase,’ the Duke said. ‘Else, how could we flood village and city with our information? The people must learn how well I govern them. How would they know if we didn’t tell them?'”

–Frank Herbert, Dune

“Let us be fair. Ford Frick does not try to do the wrong thing. Given the choice between doing something right or something wrong, Frick will usually begin by doing as little as possible. It is only when he is pushed to the wall for a decision that he will almost always, with sure instinct and unerring aim, make an unholy mess of things.”

–Bill Veeck with Ed Linn, Veeck as in Wreck