Inspiring lines

[Gumboot]

It's not from a book, but 20 years on this remains one of the greatest ever lines about mortality:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.

 

[Glen]

Loved reading this thread, especially the Golding and Orwell. That Orwell line, the first of the novel very cleverly drops in something fantastic in a mundane setting. Immediately the reader knows something is not quite right about that world.

This is my favourite line of all time, from Heller's Catch 22:

"That was where he wanted to be if he had to be there at all, instead of hung out there in front like some goddam cantilevered goldfish in some goddam cantilevered goldfish bowl while the goddam foul black tiers of flak were bursting and booming and billowing all around and above and below him in a climbing, cracking, staggered, banging, phantasmagorical, cosmological wickedness that jarred and tossed and shivered, clattered and pierced, and threatened to annihilate them all in one splinter of a second in one vast flash of fire. (p. 57)"

I'm sure this breaks a few rules. But having all that thought, and description packed into one long flowing sentence helps to evoke the mind-jangling fear and hideousness of being stuck in the bombardiers station of a bomber during an air-raid.

 

[Abernovo]

Paranoid marvin made me think about Orwell expertise with opening passages, drawing the reader in and setting the tone for the rest of the novel. Opening lines and scenes are so important.

The clock struck half past two. In the little office at the back of Mr. McKechnie's bookshop, Gordon--Gordon Comstock, last member of the Comstock family, aged twenty-nine and rather moth-eaten already--lounged across the table, pushing a four-penny packet of Player's Weights open and shut with his thumb.

Keep the Aspidistra Flying - his novel about a struggling aspirant writer. I think it's that he describes Gordon himself as moth-eaten, instantly giving me the impression of someone who's down, both at heel and in his heart.
I wonder if Orwell also had a thing about clocks.


On the subject of writing, there's a line in Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. Not so much something that I aspire to write. Just apposite.
Perhaps a useful excuse as to why I have not yet produced my magnum opus?

'Well, when I am fifty-three or so I would like to write a novel as good as Persuasion, but with a modern setting, of course. For the next thirty years or so I shall be collecting material for it...'

Apologies for perhaps going slightly off topic with the second quote.

 

[HuskerFanCO]

For my own contribution, I will quote from The Road by Cormac McCarthy:

"Borrowed time and borrowed world and borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it."

I love it for the parallel structure, the repetition that doesn't feel overdone, the rhyming effect, and the nontraditional, yet correct, use of sorrow as a verb. It perfectly captures the emotions of the character as he observes the post-apocalyptic world.

There are many more in this book, but another favorite:
"Where you've nothing else construct ceremonies out of air and breathe upon them."

I am typically drawn to a books by the story and characters, and place less emphasis on the language and writing technique as long as they are "adequate". This was the first book (outside of school assignments many years ago) where I was moved enough by the language to actually mark favorites passages.

Cheers,
Troy

 

[Galacticdefender]

Not from a book, but in Mass Effect 3, a character who is a self-aware robot (his name is Legion), right before he dies, he says "Does this unit have a soul?"

Shepard pretty much has the descision to save Legion's race or another, and upon choosing to save the other, Legion will try to stop shepard. Another character stabs Legion, and right before he collapses, he manages to say "Does this unit have a soul?" referring to himself, of course.

May not sound like much in written form, but I thought it was an incredibly moving scene. First time a scene in a game has ever really made me water at the eyes a bit.


On a lighter note, the line "The ships hung in the air much the same way as bricks don't" from Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy is up there in terms of awesomeness.

 

[Michael01]

Hmm. I can't recall all the lines that fit HB's description for me. There is a passage, punctuated by a particular (not very descriptive line) that still stands out to me so many years after reading it. But it isn't really the line. How should I describe it?

In Donaldson's The One Tree, the character Seadreamer [Hmm...I think I'm spoiling this a little] did not speak because he was afflicted with a powerful vision concerning Thomas Covenant. He never says anything, until the very end of the book, and then it's only two words:

"Do not!"

I'm still not sure why this affected me so much. Donaldson leads up to this with, I think, a rather poignant description of Seadreamer's actions. I guess it's all of it together, and these two lonely words brought about an emotional response from me.

There must be many descriptive lines, however, that I could say I wished I'd written myself. I'll have to look through my shelves to see if can't find one that really works for me.

I guess I can start with what led up to Seadreamer's plea:

"For an instant, he did not touch it. His gaze reached toward the company as if he were poised on the verge of immolation. Passions he could not articulate dismayed his face along the line of his scar."

 

[HareBrain]

On a lighter note, the line "The ships hung in the air much the same way as bricks don't" from Hitchikers' Guide to the Galaxy is up there in terms of awesomeness.

Yes. Funny but also gets across a striking image.

This from A Prayer for Owen Meany by Jon Irving:

He loved to fall -- he skied to crash.

I love the sound and rhythm and symmetry of this. And also the not-quite-symmetry, because the second "to" has a different meaning to the first (being short for "in order to").

 

[Jo Zebedee]

@HB, but also, how much do we know about that character in just what? 8 words.

@Gumboot, I love that line, it's hard to read it without hearing Rutger Hauer's voice.

 

[Venusian Broon]

@Gumboot, I love that line, it's hard to read it without hearing Rutger Hauer's voice.

And apparently Rutger Hauer just made it up on the day, as it wasn't in the script, so it really does deserve his voice!

 

[Vertigo]

I loved that line as well and although Rutger Hauer's delivery was simply superb I thought Anthony Hopkins' rendition of it in a TV advert (I don't remember quite what for but something to do with films) a year or so back was equally captivating!

I have a line I came across in the Gregory Benford book I'm reading at the moment. Not a particularly fantastic line in itself but the rather unusual metaphor just seems to me so right.

The runoff storm water sorted itself out into streams and then slow-moving rivers lined with tuft-topped trees.

I just love the image of water "sorting itself out"

 

[Toby Frost]

There's a lot of Orwell I'd nominate, more from the essays than the novels, but I think for sheer punch and "I wish I'd said that" it's hard to beat Raymond Chandler. He's been parodied millions of times, but his writing to my mind hasn't lost its sharpness. A line like:

"From 30 feet away she looked like a lot of class. From 10 feet away she looked like something made up to be seen from 30 feet away"

not only tells you a lot about the woman and the narrator, but is as well balanced as a good joke. The repetition, and the way the description quotes itself, gives it a real feeling of weariness as well as humour.

Then again, there's always the description of a hangover in Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. Quoting from memory, Dixon discovers that "some small animal of the night had used his mouth first as a latrine and then as a mausoleum". The contrast between the precise, almost elaborate language and the squalid subject matter is very funny.

 

[Esfires]

Vertigo's mention of Anthony Hopkins brought to mind another movie line, though its certainly good enough to pass for literature. It's from Meet Joe Black, where Hopkins' character (Parrish) is talking to his daughter (Susan) about her relationship with her fiance:


PARRISH: Listen, I'm crazy about the guy -- He's smart, he's aggressive, he could carry Parrish Communications into the 21st century and me along with it.
SUSAN: So what's wrong with that?
PARRISH: That's for me. I'm talking about you. It's not so much what you say about Drew, it's what you don't say.
SUSAN: You're not listening --
PARRISH: Oh yes, I am. Not an ounce of excitement, not a whisper of a thrill, this relationship has all the passion of a pair of titmice.
SUSAN: Don't get dirty, Dad --
PARRISH: Well, it worries me. I want you to get swept away. I want you to levitate. I want you to sing with rapture and dance like a dervish.
SUSAN: That's all?
PARRISH: Be deliriously happy. Or at least leave yourself open to be.


I always loved the "whisper of a thrill" line in particular, but the whole scene is wonderful, especially when delivered with Hopkins' magnetism.

 

[Ursa major]

Not a line to inspire, as such, but Chandler again, this time "describing" someone who was probably a little more attractive than the 30-foot-awayer that Toby mentioned:

It was a blonde. A blonde to make a bishop kick a hole in a stained-glass window.

 

[Esfires]

Not a line to inspire, as such, but Chandler again, this time "describing" someone who was probably a little more attractive than the 30-foot-awayer that Toby mentioned:

That would probably be considered too corny these days. They just don't make 'em like they used to.

 

[TheDustyZebra]

HB, I was just thinking of Owen Meany, but got sidetracked before I could get it down and look through it. Great minds, and all that....

 

[HareBrain]

HB, I was just thinking of Owen Meany, but got sidetracked before I could get it down and look through it. Great minds, and all that....

I no longer have the book -- the line above was a twenty-year-old memory.

There's another one I can't quite remember: two sentences where the first is two clauses separated by a semi-colon, and the second is "Firewater would eat him". Again, I loved the rhythm of it. See if you can find it.

 

[Gumboot]

While I realise it's heresy for a fantasy writer to say this, I don't particularly rate JRR Tolkien as a writer, but there's one particular segment in "The Return of the King" which remains one of the most perfect, powerful passages I have ever encountered.

It immediately follows Gandalf's encounter with the chief of the Nazgul, at the gates of Minas Tirith...

"And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a **** crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, reeking nothing of wizardry or war, welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.
And as if in answer there came from far away another note. Horns, horns, horns. In dark Mindolluin's sides they dimly echoed. Great horns of the North wildly blowing. Rohan had come at last."

ETA. Weird, the censor edited out the name for a male chicken (not rooster).

 

[HareBrain]

Just shows how tastes differ, Gumboot -- much as I love LOTR, that passage never did much for me. I much prefer Tolkien's quieter descriptions of the Shire:

The leaves of trees were glistening, and every twig was dripping; the grass was grey with cold dew. Everything was still, and fear-away noises seemed near and clear: fowls chattering in a yard, someone closing the door of a distant house.

 

[Warren_Paul]

Just shows there's no accounting for taste, Gumboot -- much as I love LOTR, that passage never did much for me. I much prefer Tolkien's quieter descriptions of the Shire:

I like how there is both a semi-colon and a colon in that quote, HB.

 

[HareBrain]

I like how there is both a semi-colon and a colon in that quote, HB.

That's why I like it. I don't care for the words themselves.