Literary Quotables

I had been working on a post most of the week about a technical aspect of writing concerning dialogue. After backing and forthing over it a few times, I decided that I needed some time to really research the topic and instead of letting it continually hold up a new post I should put that one on the back burner and post something new.

And so here we are.

This week, I've been working on a gift for my father's 60th birthday - which is tomorrow. For those of you who know me, this kind of procrastination can hardly be a surprise. However, I assure you, I am well on my way and will have my little gift complete in time.

As part of the gift, I have been searching for a literary quote about fatherhood or love or family to go with a picture. At first I pursued the Ernest Hemingway route, prepared to fail of course because of Hemingway's masculine, action-oriented prose. Then I moved on to Tolstoy, then Robert Penn Warren, Shakespeare. All turned up nothing.

However, I think it's obvious that the source of my quotation troubles is that I'm searching on the internet. For all of the internet's fine inventions, the complete lack of a quotation search engine is pretty disappointing.

Is it that much to ask to be able to search a selection of literary quotations for key words?

There must be some middle ground between a Hallmark card style quote from "Anonymous" and something written by Goethe.

I'll keep you updated on my search, and am open to suggestions.