Your favorite sentence (that you wrote or not)

[Robert Zwilling]

I wrote this sentence and have published it in a few poems, one book, and a few assorted forums.

"The polar regions have already melted, they just haven't finished melting yet."

 

[Boneman]

"It's a bad day, not a bad life."

Jo Marryat; Indigo Heartfire.

 

[nixie]

One that springs to mind instantly,
"The man in Black fled across the Desert, and the Gunslinger followed"

The first sentence in King's Gunslinger.

 

[sknox]

One thing I know is, you just never know. (me)
The favorite of what I've written, not of all I've read. I couldn't peg a favorite there. Probably something from Raymond Chandler. That closing speech from The Maltese Falcon is a classic.

 

[Alex The G and T]

"We try not to let over-zealous interpretation of fact interfere with the spinning of a good tale, or a bad joke." - Alex

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Probably something from Raymond Chandler. That closing speech from The Maltese Falcon is a classic.

Which is by Dashiell Hammett. Easy to get those two hard-boiled guys mixed up, although their styles are quite different.

 

[reiver33]

The man had no luck worth having, and all of it bad.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

M. John Harrison's work is a rich repository of great sentences. This one's from his short short story, "Rockets of the Western Suburbs":

"Without warning (an act in itself 100% pure communication) the camera cuts away from this: very fast, upwards, turning in a series of vertical 180 degree snap rolls, so that first you see the world kaleidoscoping rapidly from a thousand feet up, then from low orbit."

 

[sknox]

Which is by Dashiell Hammett. Easy to get those two hard-boiled guys mixed up, although their styles are quite different.

*grimace*
That's what I get for being to lazy to walk across the room to look at the actual book!

 

[Jo Zebedee]

‘Shoes. I insist.’

 

[StilLearning]

From one of my early 75 word contest entries.

"Fire? Have all the fire you want".

 

[Danny McG]

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

 

[HareBrain]

One that's stuck in my mind, from The Water Theatre by Lindsay Davies: "The hall stood silent as a painting of itself."

 

[reiver33]

It’s always hard to deal with a death in the family, especially if it’s your own.

 

[Danny McG]

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

I know where this one's from. Funny thing is that TVs no longer do that (so they wouldn't by the time the book is set) -- you can't even tune them to a dead channel anymore!

 

[Toby Frost]

I was going to mention that one, because it sets the scene and tone perfectly. A lot of the best sentences I can think of come at the end of a story and don't mean much on their own: "Winston loved Big Brother" or "Something that had been a man".

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis contains the following description of a hangover: "His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. "

 

[Boneman]

Guess I can't let my all-time favourite book go by without the opening sentence:

The gale tore at him and he felt its bite deep within and he knew that if they did not make landfall in three days they would all be dead.

Shogun - James Clavell.

 

[Biskit]

Still my favourite - first line, first book:
Everyone has their demons, but I buy mine wholesale.