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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Some of My Favorite Things

I'm a little light on easily imparted intelligence these days, so I thought I'd share a few of my favorite lines. Some of these I've read recently, so they're sparkling on the old brain. Others are classics, permanently ingrained. I hope you enjoy.
~~~
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. - Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark

He had a face like a collapsed lung. ~ Raymond Chandler, The Long Good-Bye

Clean of living things. ~ Robin McKinley, Sunshine

One part of me wanted to puke quietly, but thoroughly, in a far corner of the room. ~ Richard Kadrey, Sandman Slim
~~~
Out of the context of their killer stories (or poem, in the one case), these might not mean much to you. To me, they were unexpected, clever, or simply and perfectly suited to the moment. The impudent hatchlings that climbed into my ear, subtle as a song, and then just never left.

But I've saved the best for last. Here, dear readers is my favorite knuckle-cracking, one-sided grin of a line:

And now I'm going to tell you something really cool. ~ Attributed to Stephen Brust (A storyteller's creed)

So tell me, dahlings, what are your favorites?

5 comments:

  1. Sandman Slim was full of fantastic lines. So good they almost took me out of the narrative (but in a good way). Choosing this one was, perhaps, a disservice to the story since some people will tune out after "puking". But, in one line we see that the situation doesn't just inspire the gut reaction of throwing up, it makes the MC want to do it thoroughly. It's that bad. I highly recommend the book, for more than just that line.

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  2. What is all this juice and all this joy?
    A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
    In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy...

    —from "Spring" by Gerard Manley Hopkins :)

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  3. "The boy makes ten of you, false priest."

    I haven't read Salem's Lot in 20 years, and I can still remember that line, and the thought of the showdown between Father Callahan and Barlow in the Petrie kitchen still gives me goosebumps. :)

    How far the vampire genre has fallen!

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  4. Oh, I like that one.

    I like to pretend that these vampires (current) and those vampires (freaky-scary) exist in different realms. I may visit both, but never at the same time.

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