More Novel Quotes....

[SEVERUSMAX]

"Then, be a slave, Julian." from Gore Vidal's Julian.

"He is Samurai.." from Tom Clancy's Executive Orders.

"Now, let's get to work." also from Executive Orders.

 

[AngeloMichael]

"Winter is Coming."

"Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken"

"Ours is the fury!"

"A Lannister always pays his debts"

From George R.R. Martin's "A Game of Thrones"

 

[ElizabethWest]

"The tramp steamer Drake plowed away from the coast of India
and pushed its blunt prow into the Arabian Sea, homeward bound.
Slowly it made its way west toward the Gulf of Aden. Its hold was
loaded with coffee, rice, tea, oil seeds and jute. Black smoke poured
from its one stack, darkening the hot cloudless sky."​

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

"This isn't America."

"It will be, you spineless son of a bitch!"

From Eric Flint's 1632.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

"Lawyering will do in a pinch." 1632 by Eric Flint

"I sometimes wonder how I was ever born." First Citizen by Thomas T. Thomas

 

[AngeloMichael]

From I, Q by John De Lancie and Peter David

For those who don't know, the character of the Grand Nagus was played by actor Wallace Shawn (Vizzini from The Princess Bride ) in the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

He [The Grand Nagus] rubbed his hands together. "What have you got?"

"Got?"

"Yes. Got."

I was about to launch myself across the table to wring that little twerp's neck when I felt Picard's hand retraining me.

"Go on..." I croaked.

"What do you have for payment? For trade? You can't possibly think," and he laughed derisively, "I'd tell you what you want for nothing, do you?"

The thought had crossed my mind," I said.

"Well uncross it. The very notion is insulting. To give you something for nothing? Absurd. I will require some sort of payment."

"I left my wallet in my other pants," I told him. "Look, I'm not in the mood to play these games..."

"And I'm not in the mood to be trifled with!" Then he looked at Data and seemed to be considering something. Finally he said, "Am I mistaken, or is he a machine of sorts?"

"Yes, I am. I am an android," said Data.

"What possible bearing does that have on--"

"The nagus cut Picard off and said, "I'll take the android in trade. How's that? That sounds fair."

"Fine, take him."

"Q!" said Picard in annoyance. "We're not trading him!"

"I'm not leaving without the information. Time is ticking, Mr. Holmes."

"We don't leave him behind," Picard growled.

I blew air impatiently between my teeth, and then after a moment's consideration, I looked back at the Ferengi. "Are you interested in a challenge?"

"A challenge?" The nagus eyed me suspiciously. "What sort of challenge?"

"I think you'll find it rather intriguing. Forget the android. I'll put myself on the line. I, one of the most powerful beings in the galaxy, shall be your servant if you win the challenge."

"The 'former' most powerful being," he corrected me. "An intriguing proposition," he said, grinning in a fiendish manner. "And you have some sort of contest in mind? A battle of wits?"

"Simply put...yes. I will say a number that you are thinking of."

"Any number?"

"Yes."

"But you have no power. That's true, isn't it?"

"If I had power," I sighed, "wouldn't I simply turn you into a melting puddle of flesh and be done with you? If I had power, you toddy-faced throw-up, would I be coming to the likes of you for an answer to any question, least of all a question regarding my son's whereabouts?"

"Good point," admitted the Nagus, "I believe you. So, you will say a number that I'm thinking of?"

"That is correct."

"And if you cannont do so then you will be my servant. Forever."

"Also correct."

"Q," Picard said, clearly concerned. "Are you sure you know what you are doing?"

"Absolutely."

"All right," said the nagus after a moment's deliberation. "I've got it."

"Six," I said without hesitation.

"Haaaa haaa ha!" the nagus roared with laughter. "It was one million and three! You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The best known, of course, is never get involved in a land war on Vulcan. But only slightly less well known is this: Never go up against a Ferengi when money is on the line!"

And he continued to laugh very loudly until I said calmly, "One million and three. Now where's my son?"

That stopped him. He frowned and said, "What?"

"One million and three. Did I not make myself heard? Are you thinking of that number right now?"

"Well...yes," there was clear confusion on his face. "Because we're talking about it now, yes, but..."

"I did what I said I would."

"No you didn't!" His voice went up an octave. "You were supposed to guess!"

"I never said that." I turned to Data and asked, "How did the conversation with the nagus and me go, precisely? Word for word?"

Completely in his element, Data said crisply, "You said, 'I will say a number that you are thinking of.' The nagus said, 'Any number?' You said, 'Yes.' He said, 'But you have--' "

"I know what I said!" raged the nagus. He had been trembling earlier with fear; now it was with anger. "But what challenge is there if you just say the number after I've already told you what it is?"

"I never said I would say the number before you said it..."

then after Q gets the information:

The nagus was shaking his head. "I, the nagus, outwitted. Inconceivable."

"I do not think that word means what you think it does," said Data.

 

[Aurora Black]

From I, Q by John De Lancie and Peter David

For those who don't know, the character of the Grand Nagus was played by actor Wallace Shawn (Vizzini from The Princess Bride ) in the series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

*gigglesnort*

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

"You've still got 2 centuries to argue with him."

"That's lawyering, and you know it."

From 1632

 

[SnoopDog]

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."

From The Dark Tower - The Gunslinger

The very first and the very last lines of a novel have to be perfect in order to make it worthwhile, imho !


Snoopy

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

"I'm like the senator from Rome who said, 'Don't tell my mother I'm in politics. She thinks I play piano in a brothel.'"

"Poor sod. Almost got lucky for once. It would have been the coup of his career."

From Night of The Fox by Jack Higgins

 

[wrathofkublakhan]

"Where's Pa going with that ax?" -- EB White, Charlotte's Web

 

[R. Richard]

"A man never forgets. A man pays his debts" - The Yakuza

 

[Katyusha]

"Don't tell me Harry Potter is actually about the Holy Grail."
--Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

"'She's not on the ship yet, however,' Picard pointed out after a moment.
'You're right, Jean-Luc,' Crusher said in wonderment, as if the thought had not occurred to him. He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially, 'We'll tell the whole crew to hide. When she comes aboard, she'll find no one here, and then maybe she'll leave.'"
--Peter David, Q-Squared

"Teenage boys are very good at thinking they've got their feelings completely hidden. It helps to compensate for the fact that, more often than not, they're wearing them on their sleeves."
--Peter David, Imzadi

"He had found a Nutri-Matic machine which had provided him with a plastic cup filled with a liquid that was almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea."
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

 

[Boxlicker101]

"It was a dark and stormy night."

 

[Seattle Zack]

Chip Kidd once said, “A good book cover makes you want to pick it up. End of story.” When you open that book, a gripping first sentence or paragraph prevents you from putting it back down. The opening hook. It’s a simple concept -- reading is linear, time is finite. What keeps a reader reading is the opening hook.

"Three men at McAlister State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye, but all were black and therefore, by Lamar's own figuring, hardly human at all. His was the largest penis ever seen on a white man in that prison or any of the others in which Lamar had spent so much of his adult life. It was a monster, a snake, a ropey, veiny thing that hardly looked at all like what it was but rather like some form of rubber tubing."

--Steven Hunter, Dirty White Boys

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Great Quotes from the Harry Flashman Papers:

==

"Now, you know what I think of mortal combat. I've run from more than I can count, and lived never to regret it... "

--

"I'm not just an indiscriminate rake, you see; I like to be interested in a woman in a way that is not merely carnal, to find out new facinations in her with each encounter, those enchanting, mysterious, indefinable qualities, like the shape of her tits."

--

"I wonder sometimes if any man on earth has come to in a cell more often than I have. It has been happening to me all my life: perhaps I could claim a record. But if I did some American would be sure to beat it at once."

--

"I've known too many women, far too many, to claim to understand 'em. Their minds work in ways too mysterious for me to fathom; anyway, my studies have generally been confined to their bodies, which perhaps accounts for it."

--

"...if there's one thing I detest more than another it's these hearty, selfish, muscular Christians who are forever making light of your troubles when all you want to do is lie whimpering."

--

"What, for that matter, could I do, in this nest of intrigue and terror, where my life depended on the whim of a diabolical despot who was undoubtedly mad, fickle, dangerous, and fiendishly cruel? (Not unlike my first governess, in a way, except that their notions of bath-time for little Harry were somewhat different)."

--

"...she was simply the lewdest-looking strumpet I ever saw in my life ... you could have covered this one in sackcloth in the front row of the church choir, and they'd still have ridden her out of town on the rail."

--

"When I think of the number of eminent men - and women - who have taken me at face value, and formed a high opinion of my character and abilities, it makes my tremble for my country's future. I mean, if they can't spot me as a wrong'un, who can they spot?"

--

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Just a bump with a little shake-of-the-head.

It's an interesting cultural note that here on the AUTHOR'S Hangout, a thread about favorite movie quotes has over 730 posts and has been going strong for over a year.

Meanwhile, this thread devoted to quotes from novels, has been aournd for less than three weeks, and, prior this bump, was on page two with only 15 posts and falling fast.

That's neither good nor bad. However, I do believe it is a valid indicator of the relative influence of films verses novels in modern culture.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[MissBri]