Literary Epigraphs

A tumblr dedicated to epigraphs and other snatches of literary merit.

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The cattle are lowing, The Baby awakes. But the little Lord Jesus No crying he makes

“From the famous Christmas Carol,” “Away in the Manger.” Epigraph from Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 

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This book is essentially different from any other that has been published concerning the 'late war' or any of its incidents. Those who have had any such experience as the author will see its truthfulness at once, and to all other readers it is commended as a statement of actual things by one who experienced them to the fullest.

John Ransom's Andersonville Diary. Epigraph from The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

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... the specific character of despair is precisely this:  it is unaware of being despair.

Soren Kierkegaard, 'The Sickness Unto Death.’ Epigraph from Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer

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“Conversation” by Bo Burnham

“Well...,”            she said, unwell. “Well...surely...,”            she continued, unwell, unsure. “Listen,” he said.            But nothing.             Just some rain tapping a window out of boredom.

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“I Know a Man”  by Robert Creeley

As I sd to my friend, because I am always talking,—John, I sd, which was not his name, the darkness sur- rounds us, what can we do against it, or else, shall we & why not, buy a goddamn big car, drive, he sd, for   christ’s sake, look out where yr going.

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La prothese organique est devenue nue prothese de l’esprit. (The organic denture prosthesis became the naked mind).

Christophe Tison, L’est du vite. Epigraph from Enda Duffy’s The Speed Handbook: Velocity, Pleasure, Modernism

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I think cars today are the equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals.

Roland Barthes, quoted in Modris Ekstein’s Rises of Spring. Epigraph from Enda Duffy’s The Speed Handbook: Velocity, Pleasure, Modernism

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If you want to see an endangered species, get up and look in the mirror.

John Young, former NASA astronaut. Epigram from Beacons: Stories For Our Not So Distant Future edited by Gregory Norminton

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Three Epigraphs from Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones

"See now that I, even I am he, and there is no god with me; I kill and I make alike, I wound and I heal, neither is there any can deliver out of my hand." —Deuteronomy 32:39 "For though I’m small, I know many things, And my body is an endless eye Through which, unfortunately, I see everything.” —Gloria Fuertes, “Now”

"We on our backs staring at the stars above, Talking about what we are going to be when we grow up, I said what you wanna be? She said, ‘Alive.’” —Outkast, “Da Art of Storytellin’” (Part One) Aquemini

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Little sleep’s-head sprouting hair in the moonlight,  when I come back we will go out together, we will walk out together among the ten thousand things, each scratched too late with such knowledge, the wages of dying is love

Galway Kinnell. Epigraph from Julia Pierpont’s Among the Ten Thousand Things

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It gives him great pleasure, makes Rabbit feel rich, to contemplate the world’s wasting, to know the earth is mortal too.

John Updike, Rabbit is Rich. Epigram from Ian McEwan’s Solar

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Okay, we didn’t work, and all memories to tell you the truth aren’t good. But sometimes there were good times. Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep beside me and never dreamed afraid. There should be stars for great wars like ours.

Sandra Cisneros. Epigraph from This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

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Like many men who are compulsively cruel to their womenfolk, he also shed tears at the cinema, and showed a disproportionate concern for insects.

Shirley Hazzard, The Bay of Noon. Epigram from Snowden Wright’s personal essay How to Get the Crabs

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'It is good to renew one's wonder,' said the philosopher. 'Space travel has again made children of us all.'

Epigraph from Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles

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Then I went back into the house and wrote, It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows. It was not midnight. It was not raining.

Samuel Beckett, Molloy. Epigraph from James Tate’s Memoir of the Hawk: Poems

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We have shared out like thieves the amazing treasure of nights and days

J.L. Borges. Epigraph from Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburg