#litfloat

1. “The hands on the hall-clock pointed to half-past six in the morning. The house was a country residence in West Somersetshire, called Combe-Raven.” (No Name, Wilkie Collins)

2. “Eine kleine Pfote drehte an den Rädchen eines riesigen Teleskops. Ein winziges Fellknäuel spähte durch das eiserne Rohr voller gläserner Linsen. Nun war das Bild des Sternenhimmels ganz klar. “Unglaublich!”, murmelte die kleine Maus.” (Armstrong. Die abenteuerliche Reise einer Maus zum Mond, Torben Kuhlmann)

Translated as: Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon

3. "Listen ... He was running down Harmony when he heard it. Faint at first, but growing clearer, rising above the noise of the streets. Out in the dark, beyond the city, a siren voice was calling, lonely as the song of whales. It was the sound he had been waiting for. The Interstellar Express was thundering down the line from Golden Junction, and singing as it came.” (Rail Head, Philip Reeve)

4. "There’s this song that keeps coming on the radio, but Holly can only ever catch bits of it. Remember oh remember back when we were, a girl’s voice clear and urgent, the fast light beat lifting you up off your toes and speeding your heart to keep up, and then it’s gone.” (The Secret Place, Tana French)

5. “I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked.” (The Martian, Andy Weir)

6. “Ich gehöre zu den Menschen, die glauben, dass sie sich schützen können, wenn sie mit dem Schlimmsten rechnen, dass Katastrophen immer nur die treffen, die nicht auf sie vorbereitet sind. Dass man ihnen entkommen kann, wenn man sie erwartet.” (Das fremde Meer, Katharina Hartwell)

7. “Here is the boy, drowning.” (More Than This, Patrick Ness)

8. “Lugh got born first. On Midwinter Day when the sun hangs low in the sky. Then me. Two hours later. That pretty much says it all. Lugh goes first, always first, an I follow on behind. An that’s fine. That’s right. That’s how it’s meant to be.” (Blood Red Road, Moira Young)

9. "The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precedeit, no paper notices on downtown posts and billboards, no mentions or advertisements in local newspapers. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.” (The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern)

10. "There is one mirror in my house. It is behind a sliding panel in the hallway upstairs. Our faction allows me to stand in front of it on the second day of every third month, the day my mother cuts my hair.” (Divergence, Veronica Roth)

11. "Before she became the Girl from Nowhere––the One Who Walked In, the First and Last and Only, who lived a thousand years––she was just a little girl in Iowa, named Amy. Amy Harper Bellafonte.” (The Passage, Justin Cronin)

12. "The temperature of the room dropped fast. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling.” (The Amulet of Samarkand, Jonathan Stroud)

13. "Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.” (Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Rick Riordan)

14. “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question.” (Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë)

15. "Take an orange, Sambo (if your name is Sambo), a nice round juicy orange. Now take a knife––yes any knife––and cut it. Cut it anywhere; just make sure you cut it so you divide it into two pieces. I don’t care if they’re equal halves or not.” (The Simoqin Prophecies, Samit Basu)

16. "Lyra and her dæmon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of the sight of the kitchen.” (The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman)

17. "Ein Blaubär hat siebenundzwanzig Leben. Dreizehneinhalb davon werde ich in diesem Buch preisgeben, über die anderen werde ich schweigen. Ein Bär muss seine dunklen Seiten haben, das macht ihn attraktiv und mysteriös.” (Die 13½ Leben des Käpt’n Blaubär, Walter Moers)

“A bluebear has twenty-seven lives. I shall recount thirteen-and-a-half of them in this book but keep quiet about the rest. A bear must have his secrets, after all; they make him seem attractive and mysterious.” (The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear, Walter Moers)

18. "Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework, but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard.” (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, J. K. Rowling)

19. "Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin.” (Winnie-the-Pooh, A. A. Milne)

20. "Primrose woke early that summer morning. She dressed quickly and tiptoed down to the kitchen. Her mother was already up, packing a rain cloak and hat into a small bag.” (Sea Story, Jill Barklem)

Sorry this got so long. It could have gotten much longer still, there are so many wonderful books out there!! I just fucking love reading awesome stories!! XD