Favorite lines - Inspiration thread

phantasy said:

So to get it started, here's a favorite of mine at the moment:



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Mods, I hope this is allowed. It could be a really great thread to come for inspiration. If not, lock away, no hard feelings. Thanks!

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Anything from The Princess Bride is good.

"In the fall the war was always there, but we did not go to it any more"

Ernest Hemingway. 'In another country'

I first read this line over thirty years ago. I never got over it.

From one of my favourite books, with so many beautifully written lines it's hard to pick, The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman:

They say the truest beauty is in the harshest land and that God can be found there by those with open eyes. But my eyes were closed against the shifting winds that can blind a person in an instant.

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William Shakespeare - King Henry V

I have too many to pick a favourite, so I'll go with the one I added to my list of quotes yesterday, from Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Effect

My love for Rosie was so powerful that it had caused my brain to make a grammatical error.

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From Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time, The Karaethon Cycle from the Prologue of The Fires of Heaven;

With his coming are the dread fires born again.
The hills burn, and the land turns sere.
The tides of men run out, and the hours dwindle.
The wall is pierced, and the veil of parting raised.
Storms rumble beyond the horizon, and the fires of heaven purge the earth.
There is no salvation without destruction, no hope this side of death.

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One of my favorite lines (and way to go on the Wheel of Time quote above) is from Dr. Seuss. My mom constantly read The Lorax to me and my sisters and she repeatedly stressed this line,

"Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better, it's not."

I think it's a great message and it is a major lesson in my WIP. Unfortunately my writing style shows off what happens when you don't care and everything tanking from there. My MC swoops in, removes the bad forces and says it is up to the people to not let that happen again and *spoiler* they don't get their act together.

I still would say it is inspirational to me because the way I was raised (and I'm not condoning it) was that I couldn't do something and I had to prove my mother wrong. That fit with my personality type and my MC will have to learn that not everyone can do the right thing with a clean slate.

My favorite opening is from Matsuo Bashô's Narrow Road to the Deep North (奥の細道 Oku no Hosomichi). It gives me chills every time I read it.

Days and months are the travelers of eternity. So are the years that pass by. Those who steer a boat across the sea, or drive a horse over the earth till they succumb to the weight of years, spend every minute of their lives traveling. There are a great number of ancients, too, who died on the road. I myself have been tempted for a long time by the cloud-moving wind filled with a strong desire to wander.

Here's the original for those who can read Japanese.

月日は百代の過客にして行かふ年も又旅人也. 舟の上に生涯をう
かべ、馬の口とらえて老をむかふる物は日々旅にして旅を栖とす.
古人も多く旅に死せるあり.

From The Remarkable Rocket by Oscar Wilde:

"I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."

That story had me laughing to tears.

Thanks for this lovely thread

I definitely need to check that Oscar Wilde book out!

From Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo (about the character Gavroche):

"He was one of those children who are most to be pitied, those who possess parents but are still orphans. He was never happier than when he was in the streets, their very flagstones seeming to him less hard than his mother's heart."

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This really hit me because it was the first time I had ever read a character who didn't exactly have the kindest parents (like me).

There are tons of lines from this book that I absolutely love, but this particular quote is one I have never quite been able to forget.

It's actually a short story in a book with a collection of other short stories of his called The Happy Prince and Other Tales.

From Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove:

"A man who wouldn't cheat for a poke don't want one bad enough."

"That fish looked mean. Like he wanted to look mean. Like he meant it."

--from JAWS by Peter Benchley



"What does MP stand for?"
"Shore Patrol."

--from M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker



. . .All my quick and limber daughters.

--from SAINT JACK by Paul Theroux



(and in keeping with the approaching holiday):

"He was clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere."

--from DRACULA by Bram Stoker



"I wonder if I could eat a child if I had the chance."
"I doubt if I could cook one."

--from WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED IN THE CASTLE by Shirley Jackson

"I thought you wanted to die, Louis." -- Lestat, from Interview with the Vampire. When Louis says he would rather die than become a vampire, and Lestat attempts to kill him.

WARNING: Shakespeare ahead.

Hear, Nature, hear, dear goddess, hear!
Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful.
Into her womb convey sterility.
Dry up in her the organs of increase,
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honor her. If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may live
And be a thwart disnatured torment to her.
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,
Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is
To have a thankless child.

King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4.

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This speech haunts me all the days of my ungrateful life.

“Then he [The Star Child] waited, marshaling his thoughts and brooding over his still untested powers. For though he was master of the world, he was not quite sure what to do next. But he would think of something.”

--Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

Shakespeare's Macbeth

This is actually from Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, a very plot-driven game. It comes from the perspective of the villain in 1899 near the turn of the centruy who beforehand was granted a vision of the coming future. It has a much larger impact if you actually heard it though.

"I have stood knee deep in mud and bone and filled my lungs with mustard gas. I have seen two brothers fall. I have lain with holy wars and copulated with the autumnal fallout. I have dug trenches for the refugees; I have murdered dissidents where the ground never thaws and starved the masses into faith! A child's shadow burnt into the brickwork. A house of skulls in the jungle. The innocent, the innocent, Mandus, trod and bled and gassed and starved and beaten and murdered and enslaved! This is your coming century! They will eat them Mandus, they will make pigs of you all and they will bury their snouts into your ribs and they will eat your hearts!"

And yes, he's referencing atrocities in the 20th century. He wishes to "save" them by mercy-killing them all. It was a reflection on what many during the era was thinking with the rapid development of technology introducing new ways and horrible ways to kill people en masse. The novel I'm working on has the similar point where as even though our technology advances at an incredible rate, it in facts make our world much less livable.

Edit: I also noticed that I am not following the rules completely. If needed, I will delete my post.

"Our hands are earth, our bodies clay and our eyes pools of rain. We do not know whether we still live"

All Quiet on the Western Front - Enrich Maria Remarque

It's a staggeringly beautiful book made even more so by the horror and ugliness of its subject. Possibly the most important thing I've ever read, and filled with some quite stunning passages (and that's taking into account translation!).

"We must love each other, or die"
Tuesdays With Morrie- Mitch Albom

One of my favorite books of all time, one of the only books I actually think is better listening to than reading.