Welcome to my commonplace blog

The goal of this blog is to preserve a few ideas and quotes from books I read. In the old days when books were not so readily available, people kept "commonplace books" where they copied choice passages they wanted to be able to remember and perhaps reuse. The idea got picked up by V.F.D. and it's common knowledge that most of that organization's volunteers have kept commonplace books, and so have Laura and I.

I'm sure there are many other Internet sites and blogs dedicated to the same idea. But this one is mine. Feel free to look around and leave comments, but not spam.

26 March 2011

The Curse of Capistrano (The Mark of the Zorro) (Johnston McCulley)

First time read. I got a kick out of how much of this stuff is echoed in The Princess Bride. One hombre, his blade, his honor and his senorita.


Quotes:

Sergeant Gonzales realized then that he had been angry, and he knew an angry man cannot fight with the blade as well as a man who controls his temper. So he became deadly cold now, and his eyes narrowed, and all boasting was gone from him.

“It will be rather a bore, I expect. Love and marriage, and all that sort of thing, is rather a necessary nuisance in its way. The idea of a man of sense running about a woman, playing a guitar for her, making up to her like a loon when everyone knows his intention! And then the ceremony! Being a man of wealth and station, I suppose the wedding must be an elaborate one, and the natives will have to be feasted, and all that, simply because a man is taking a bride to be mistress of his household.” (Don Diego)

Don Carlos had proved himself to be a courageous man in his youth, and now he was a wise man, also, and hence he knew better than to participate in an argument between women.

Your beauty would hinge a man’s tongue in its middle so that both ends might be free to sing your praises.

She was fighting a mental battle, was Senorita Lolita. On the one side was wealth and position, and the safety and good fortune of her parents-and a lifeless man for husband; and on the other side was the romance and ideal love she craved. Until the last hope was gone she could not give the latter up.

Even if a caballero went to his death, it was all right so long as he believed he was doing the proper thing, and died as a caballero should.

Like the tongue of a serpent, Senor Zorro’s blade shot in. Thrice it darted forward, and upon the fair brow of Ramon, just between the eyes, there flamed suddenly a red, bloody letter Z.

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