Best. Line. Ever.

[sally_sparrow]

"As you wish."

The Princess Bride

Oh my heart ...

 

[NightSailor]

"As you wish."

The Princess Bride

Oh yes - that one is a classic!

 

[ishtat]

The Daily Telegraph ( UK) was famous for never using one word when two or three would do the job. A long and detailed report back in the 1970's told the story of how a man in a pub got sick of a parrot screeching at him so he reached into its cage grabbed the parrot and bit its head off.

The crime, the evidence, the court case, the sentence and appropriate moral homily were delivered in great detail and befitting solemnity and the last line advised.

"The deceased parrot was of the species Psittacus erithacus (African Grey), and was named Wilfred"

Somehow that last line just stuck in my mind.

 

[Beardpositive77]

It's all ball bearings these days!

-Fletch

 

[PenelopeWood]

“Who are reading me: remember the time
Before the wax hardened,
When everyone was like a seal.
Each of us bears the imprint
Of a friend met along the way;“
“To My Friends” a poem by Primo Levi

 

[Handley_Page]

The Princess Bride

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father; prepare to die".

 

[LexxRuthless]

Vasyli: Inconceivable!

Indigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

-The Princess Bride

 

[SimonDoom]

Vasyli: Inconceivable!

Indigo: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

-The Princess Bride

That movie probably is in my top 10 of movies with most memorable lines.

 

[PWilton]

Switchback -- 1997

Deputy Nate Booker : Maybe we should have turned him in.

Sheriff Buck Olmstead : Maybe we should have done a lot of things differently... But turning Frank in was never an option.

Deputy Nate Booker : Why not?

Sheriff Buck Olmstead : Because he told the truth. Once you've heard the truth, everything else is just cheap whiskey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J60AeEjeNX4

 

[rikimaru4]

watching Downton Abbey this weekend -- a lot of worthy one liners

'A lack of compassion can be as vulgar as an excess of tears.'

'Never make an enemy by accident.'

'Vulgarity is no substitute for wit.'

 

[jehoram]

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

--Clemenza, in the Godfather.

Comment one: that wasn't in the book or the script. It was improvised by Richard Castellano, who played Clemenza.

Comment two: "cannoli" comes up as an error in Lit's spell-check. They must not have had a Sicilian programmer.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

"Our stories weren’t disguised curriculum vitae. We didn’t tell them as a way of boasting or declaring our relative place in the social order. There was none of that crap. These were stories to entertain, told for the shape of them, for the sake of them, for the love of a tale. It was all about the stories and the shapes of the stories. Round ones, spirals, perfect arcs, a ninety-degree take-off with a four-bump landing, and one of his, I remember vividly, was an absurdist finger trap."

Denise Mina Conviction

I just read this last night and thought it was such a perfect description of the art of a certain kind of storytelling.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

"Our stories weren’t disguised curriculum vitae. We didn’t tell them as a way of boasting or declaring our relative place in the social order. There was none of that crap. These were stories to entertain, told for the shape of them, for the sake of them, for the love of a tale. It was all about the stories and the shapes of the stories. Round ones, spirals, perfect arcs, a ninety-degree take-off with a four-bump landing, and one of his, I remember vividly, was an absurdist finger trap."

Denise Mina Conviction

I just read this last night and thought it was such a perfect description of the art of a certain kind of storytelling.

I like that one a lot!

 

[Polyacrylate]

I found this one today in an old technical manual at work that appears to date from the 1940's:

"An explosion is a loud noise followed by things not being where they were previously."

I mean, the (uncredited) author isn't wrong, I guess. It's just so beautifully artless in it's description.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

I like that one a lot!

The idea of a story being "an absurdist finger trap" just stuck so deeply in my head. I'm about halfway though this book now, and it's full of really interesting imagery.

Also - i'm loving your ever chaning signature quotes. Today's is Henry V, right? You can never go wrong quoting the Bard.

 

[ishtat]

To err is human.

To arr is pirate.

Blackbeard.

 

[Hypoxia]

"There's more than one way to skin a cat," she mused,
as she pinned its little feet to the dissection table.
--Bulwer-Lytton contest entry

 

[PoisonPen33]

"There are very few personal problems that cannot be solved through a suitable application of high explosives." - Scott Adams

 

[Sweet_Lara]

Don't he never sleep?
---Night of the Hunter

 

[rutger5]

"I call you killer ... 'cause you slay me."

"And I'm calling Bellevue because you're nuts!"

Alice and Ralph Kramden
The Honeymooners
Episode: Alice and the blonde.

 

[jehoram]

"We're gonna need a bigger boat."

- Sheriff Brody, in Jaws