# Literary quotes as book titles: a trivia quiz **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 21, 2026, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673 "2026-03-21T22:13:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/21 "2026-03-22T14:13:46Z")
> [@don\_t\_ask](#): > > Not a quote but _A Confederacy of Dunces_ got its title from a Jonathan Swift epigram, “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” Aha! I thought of this book, but when I looked in my Bartlett’s for “confederacy” there was no reference to dunces. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/22 "2026-03-22T14:35:11Z")
> [@dirtball](#): > > The Coen Brothers, **O Brother, Where Art Thou?** > > Per [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Brother,_Where_Art_Thou%3F): > > The title of the film is a reference to the 1941 Preston Sturges film Sullivan’s Travels, in which the protagonist is a director who wants to film _O Brother, Where Art Thou?_, a fictitious book about the Great Depression. Possibly also a reference to Cain and Abel. ---
**Author:** ![Jaycat.again](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat.again/32/11525_2.png) [@Jaycat.again](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaycat.again)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/23 "2026-03-22T16:04:49Z")
Paul Bowles’ novel, “Let It Come Down.” From Macbeth. Banquo: “It will be rain tonight.” First Murderer: “Let it come down.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/24 "2026-03-22T16:21:38Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > “Chariots of Fire” (Film) > > William Blake, “And did those feet in ancient time” (1804): > > "Bring me my bow of burning gold: > > Bring me Arrows of desire: > > Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold: > > Bring me my **Chariot of fire**!" Also a biblical reference: In the Old Testament, the Prophet Elijah, instead of dying, was carried bodily into Heaven in a flaming chariot. > [@](#): > > 11 As they were walking along and talking, behold, a chariot of fire and horses of fire separated the two of them, and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. 12 As Elisha was watching, he was crying out, “_Avi_! _Avi_! The chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” Then he saw him no more. So he took hold of his own clothes and tore them in two pieces. (2 Kings 2:11-12) ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/25 "2026-03-22T16:31:04Z")
Cool. Undoubtedly what William Blake had in mind. Side note….Blake’s poem was set to music and, under the title “Jerusalem” is practically a 2nd national anthem for the British. So the film’s title reference would be as glaringly obvious to the Brits as “Home of the Brave” would be to Americans. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/26 "2026-03-22T16:52:39Z")
In a thread last year I gave an example from Shakespeare in which every line spawned titles for science fiction stories. @Q.Q.Switcheroo riposted with a stanza from poetry that had equal influence. Chinua Achebe, _Things Fall Apart_ (novel) [a great book] Elyn R. Saks, _The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness_ (memoir) Woody Allen, _Mere Anarchy_ (humor) Jesse Kauffman, _The Blood-Dimmed Tide: Central Europe’s Long Great War, 1905–1921_ (history) Robert Ribman, _The Ceremony of Innocence_ (play) Not to mention _Slouching Toward Bethlehem_ (essays) by Joan Dideon and _What Rough Beast_, a novel by William John Watkins. William Butler Yeats, _The Second Coming_ Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned… And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/27 "2026-03-22T17:39:19Z")
The Captains and the Kings, by Taylor Caldwell, has a title from Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Recessional”. Two I can think of from Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”: Humphrey Cobb and Jeffrey Archer both wrote novels called Paths of Glory Thomas Hardy wrote a novel called Far from the Madding Crowd A number of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels have this type of title, including: Mortal Stakes: “Two Tramps in Mud-Time”, by Robert Frost Taming a Sea-horse: “My Last Duchess”, by Robert Browning Pale Kings and Princes: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci”, by John Keats ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/28 "2026-03-22T21:44:38Z")
redaCTED ---
**Author:** ![bibliophage](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bibliophage/32/7615_2.png) [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2026, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/29 "2026-03-22T21:59:37Z")
Wikipedia has a page called [List of book titles taken from literature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_book_titles_taken_from_literature). I didn’t create the page but I recall adding several of the entries over a period of years, back when I still saw the point of editing pages there. I don’t remember them all, but I’m pretty sure one of my additions was _Captains Courageous_ from “The Ballad of Mary Ambree”: WHEN captains couragious, whom death could not daunte, Did march to the siege of the citty of Gaunt, They muster’d their souldiers by two and by three, And the foremost in battle was Mary Ambree. ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2026, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/30 "2026-03-23T21:10:46Z")
Edith Wharton’s _The House of Mirth_ refers to Ecclesiastes Ch. 7: “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/31 "2026-03-24T02:03:31Z")
Do short stories count? I suspect that will open the door for a lot more entries. **Mimsy Were the Borogoves** by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore) taken from the obvious source. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/32 "2026-03-24T02:20:56Z")
Leif Enger’s _Peace Like a River_, a popular book club title some years back: I wish you would pay attention to my commands. If you did, peace would flow over you like a river. Isaiah 48:14 Frederick Forsyth’s _Dogs of War_, from a well-known source: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, as spoken by Marc Antony: "Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/33 "2026-03-24T11:25:01Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Ernest Hemingway, “The Sun Also Rises” > > Ecclesiastes 1:2-5: "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is a vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever. **The sun also ariseth."** Also where the title of George R. Stewart’s post-apocalyptic novel **Earth Abides** got its title. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/34 "2026-03-24T12:31:15Z")
The Spring of the Tiger, by Victoria Holt: From “Don Juan”, by Lord Byron ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/35 "2026-03-24T13:23:47Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > “The Mirror Crack’d From Side to Side”, by Agatha Christie. > > From “The Lady of Shalott” by Tennyson: Agatha was fond of using literary references, and nursery rhymes, as titles. ======================= **Evil Under the Sun** _“There is an evil that I have seen under the sun, and it lies heavy upon humankind.”_ Ecclesiastes 6:1, ======================= “ **Ten little XXXXXX** ” (And various other titles) From a nursery rhyme ======================= **Sad Cypress** Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Twelfth Night, Shakespeare ======================= **One Two Buckle my Shoe** From a nursery rhyme ======================= **Five Little Pigs** Nursery Rhyme ======================= **The Moving Finger** _The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,_ _Moves on:_ Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám: ======================= **Absent in the Spring** _“From you have I been absent in the spring,…”_ William Shakespeare’s sonnet 98: ====================== **Taken at the Flood** _“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to fortune …”._ Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar ======================= **Crooked House** Nursery Rhyme ======================= **Endless Night** _Some are born to sweet delight,_ _Some are born to endless night._ William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence: ======================= **By the Pricking of My Thumbs** _By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes._ William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, ======================= **Postern Of Fate** _Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster’s Cavern, Fort of Fear,_ _The Portal of Baghdad am I, and Doorway of Diarbekir._ “Gates of Damascus” by James Elroy Flecker ===================== **Three Blind Mice** Nursery Rhyme adapted as: **The Mousetrap** Name of the play within a play in Hamlet. ==================== I may have missed a few. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/36 "2026-03-24T16:37:56Z")
Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch gave this advice to writers about a century ago. (Attributed to a million others since.) > If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. _Murder your darlings_. Naturally, mystery writers have jumped all over this for titles. I easily found more than a dozen books on the first two pages on Amazon titled _Murder Your Darlings_, _Kill Your Darlings_, _Kill All Your Darlings_, and suchlike. In fact, the first time I encountered the phrase was Max Allen Collins’ 1984 _Kill Your Darlings_, set at the Bouchercon mystery convention. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/37 "2026-03-24T17:16:50Z")
Nero Wolfe titles **Some Buried Caesar** from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Fitzgerald translation _I sometimes think that never blows so red_ _The Rose as where **some buried Caesar** bled_ **Too Many Cooks** – saying, “Too many cooks spoil the broth” **Over my Dead Body** – saying **Where There’s a Will** – saying “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” **And be a Villain** From Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_, Act 1, Scene 5 “That one may smile, and smile, And be a villain” **Might as Well be Dead** Saying **And Four to Go** Children’s game rhyme “One for the money Two for the show Three to get ready And four to go” ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/38 "2026-03-24T17:59:13Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > **And be a Villain** > > From Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_, Act 1, Scene 5 Renamed as “_More Deaths Than One_” in the UK edition. I suspect, although I’ve never been able to confirm it, that this is an allusion to Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad Of Reading Gaol: _And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,_ _None knew so well as I:_ _For he who lives more lives than one_ _More deaths than one must die._ ---
**Author:** ![Briny\_Deep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/briny_deep/32/17188_2.png) [@Briny\_Deep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Briny_Deep)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/39 "2026-03-24T19:32:33Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > Leif Enger’s _Peace Like a River_, a popular book club title some years back: And more specifically, This hymn, written after a pretty depressing shipwreck: _When peace like a river attendeth my way When sorrows like sea billows roll Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say It is well, it is well, with my soul_ ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2026, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673/40 "2026-03-24T20:03:16Z")
That Ecclesiastes guy must have been a lot of fun at parties. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/literary-quotes-as-book-titles-a-trivia-quiz/1028673.md?page=3)