Favorite line in a book

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Jason_Taverner

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What is your favorite line you have read, something that made you tingle all over with excitment, or made you laugh out loud or made you scratch you head and think you don't hear something like that everyday. It might be something very strange or a speach that moved you so you couldn't stop thinking about it. Something evil and twisted or something heroic and noble.

For me one of my favorite (we'll all have more than one I bet), a very werid line is from Singularity Sky by Charles Stross

"The rabbit snarled and hefted his submachine gun angrily. Ears back and teeth visible, he hissed at the cyborg."

I don't think I'll ever read a line as strange as that again.
 
"If your going to play poke the bear, keep in mind the bear doesn't give a **** it's just a game" - Matthew Stover
 
The only fantasy one I can think of is not exactly a line, more a paragraph that raistlin says near the end of dragons of spring dawing.

"No my brother where I go you cannot follow. We are finally as the gods meant us to be - two whole people... Farewell my brother"

Its something along those lines anyway! :D
 
"Because. I was the Shield Anvil. But now... I am done."

In context of the book (Memories of Ice, by Steven Erikson), the conversation preceding it, and the events following it, this is an incredably moving line.
 
To the last I grapple with thee; from Hell's heart I stab a thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee - Ahab from Moby Dick (although those were also Kahn's last words in Star Trek II). Positively chilling:)
 
A few first lines of novels just worked for me:

"A screaming came across the sky" --Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow

"The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel"--Gibson, Neuromancer

I can't say I have a favorite, but when I'm sold in the first sentence, it's darn good writing. :)
 
He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it - Joseph Heller, Catch 22.

Woodshadows floated silently through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and further out the mirror of water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of the dim sea. The twining stresses two by two. A hand plucking the harpstrings merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words shimmering on the dim tide Joyce's Ulysses.
 
"If being a kid is about learning how to live, then being a grown-up is about learning how to die." Christine - Stephen King

First one that came to mind. :)
 
'So this is it,' said Arthur, 'we are going to die'.
'Yes', said Ford, 'except....no wait a minute!' He suddenly lunged across the chamber at something behind Arthur's line of vision. 'What's this switch?' he cried. 'What?, where?' cried Arthur, twisting around.
'No, i was only fooling,' said Ford, 'we are going to die after all'
-HitchHikers guide to the Galaxy
OK, so more a conversation then a line, but you know.

alternatively- anything the Fool says in the Farseer Trilogy and beyond,
or just about any part of the opening to China Mieville's 'The Scar'-
" ...They decay on their long journey down. Nothing will hit the black sand at the bottom of the world but algae-covered bones."
...beautiful :)
 
"The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock at the door . . ."
Fredric Brown
 
"You mean there's a catch?"

"Sure there's a catch," Doc Daneeka replied. "Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn't really crazy."

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.

"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
 
Azash said:
'I could muder a curry' death from mort:D
Click to expand...

Wouldn't that be, 'I COULD MURDER A CURRY'?

For mine I like:

'I should have known you would be here,' I told him.
'Yes,' he said, 'you should.' There were tears in his eyes, tears of happiness.


Derfel to Galahad and back in Bernard Cornwell's 'The Winter King'. Out of context here, but I love the sense of loyalty expressed in these few words.
 
I'm having deja vu. Didn't we do a thread like this before? Not that it matters.

From the crevice above Ilias's head, Giliead's voice demanded, "What did he say?"
Ilias streached back to hand the rope up to him through the narrow passage. "He said we're suicidal idiots."
"Tell him thanks for the support," Giliead said[.] -Martha Wells' The Wizard Hunters
 
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