Good one-liners in a book you've read?

[mvccd1000]

I just finished "Death Penalty" by William J. Coughlin, and the last line of the book really stuck with me... don't know why but I thought I'd ask if you've read a line that got your attention. Here's mine:

"I was new to the hero business, and it seemed to me I wasn't going about it quite right."



There's probably one of those in every book I read, but since that was the very last line of the book, I guess I remembered it more than one that's in the middle of a story.

[Mythsaje]

1. That's a good line. Funny.

I think I'll have to add a good one-liner at the end of my next book, just for the fun of it.

[lapfog_1]

2. "You would lose your head if it wasn't stuffed up your ass!"

Can't remember the book, detective series, the hero isn't the smartest... has an kickass Chinese girlfriend who figures out the mystery every time. I think there was a made for TV movie or series pilot, too.

Got to be 15 to 20 years old.

[nightrider767]

3. "why have you attached yourself to me like a bur to a dog's tail !?!"

It's one line I always remembered.

Henrik Scienkiewicz, With Fire and Sword

One of the best books ever written that no one here has ever read....

[YankeyMCC]

4. "Believe me, when you're dealing with ...

...infectious alien mind parasites, I always find primitive is best." Ilia Volyova, "Revelation Space" Alistair Reynolds

also from RS:

"I'm perfectly happy with my current delusional system." Tanner Mirabel

[no_hypocrisy]

5. "Elmer Gantry was drunk."

[pscot]

6. Lord Jim, Conrad

"The way is to the destructive element submit yourself, and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water make the deep, deep sea keep you up" 1

[Richardo]

7. Also Conrad (Heart of Darkness)

"In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent."

That's the sentence that stays with me. for context, the entire paragraph is equally as haunting with its depiction of institutional insanity:

"Once, I remember, we came upon a man-of-war anchored off the coast. There wasn't even a shed there, and she was shelling the bush. It appears the French had one of their wars going on thereabouts. Her ensign dropped limp like a rag; the muzzles of the long eight-inch guns stuck out all over the low hull; the greasy, slimy swell swung her up lazily and let her down, swaying her thin masts. In the empty immensity of earth, sky, and water, there she was, incomprehensible, firing into a continent. Pop, would go one of the eight-inch guns; a small flame would dart and vanish, a little white smoke would disappear, a tiny projectile would give a feeble screech--and nothing happened. Nothing could happen. There was a touch of insanity in the proceeding, a sense of lugubrious drollery in the sight; and it was not dissipated by somebody on board assuring me earnestly there was a camp of natives--he called them enemies!--hidden out of sight somewhere."

[pscot]

8. I thought about that one too

Conrad made a huge impression on me. Heart of Darkness may be the finest thing I've ever read.

[Jim__]

9. "Only jism would do."

Kurt Vonnegut in "The Big Space Fuck." The entire short story is included in his essay, Obscenity

[OffWithTheirHeads]

10. Anger manegement classes piss me off

Can't remember the author but it was one of those like Ludlum that write the same novel over and over again and sell it like a new book, but the line made me laugh.

[bluescribbler]

11. "The truth is out there...

But the lies are in your head." Terry Pratchett, I can't remember which book.

[bluescribbler]

12. From "Bridge of Birds", by Barry Hughart

"It's an idea. It may be a wrong idea, but a wrong idea is better than a lack of ideas, because wrong ideas can lead to the truth, but a lack of ideas only leads to empty headedness, ro a career in politics." Li Kao

[Hayabusa]

13. Fury

It's a Star Wars book. During a rescue mission, two men who had been wounded earlier in the book are waiting in a ship for the rescuers of a princess to return.

Jagged Fel (to Kyle): Watch out for lightsabers.

Kyle Katarn: Watch out for durasteel rails.

[truedelphi]

14. A character in "Barfly" says

Smmething like "It's not that I don't like people, it's just I notice I feel better when they're not around."

Leave it to Charles Bukowski to write a line like that.