You ever had to stop reading something for a few minutes because this line just hit you so hard? Did you have to--I mean HAVE TO--write it down somewhere or post it on facebook or whatever? Share some of them. Quotes that stopped your heart, or were just too perfect to flip past.
Here's one from Amy Hempel.
I am not quite myself, I think.
But who here is quite himself? And yet there is a way in which we all are more ourselves than ever, I suppose.
—Tumble Home, Amy Hempel
One of the most perfect little bits of description and metaphor I've found in a Palahniuk book. Made me die of laughter.
Next, I'm holding a bag of clothes, being herded toward an open door filled with sunlight. My briefs are still looped around my ankles, so I'm waddling, my erection swinging in front me like a blind man's cane, and the talent wrangler has the nerve to say, "Thank you for coming..."
—Snuff, Chuck Palahniuk
One from Spanbauer. This one hit me really hard.
"By telling your story, the knowledge you have will become understanding. And that—knowledge becoming understanding—is better than anything there is to feel."
—The Man Who Fell in Love with the Moon, Tom Spanbauer
Hell, one more from Spanbauer. Only cos this one really made me think, and I thought it was a daring, and somewhat true, thing for a writer to say.
Grandfather, Charlie said, You know I love books.
Books are in the mind, Grandfather Alessandro said. Too many books and you forget your body is in the world.
—In the City of Shy Hunters, Tom Spanbauer
And one from Matt Haig. This one also hit me hard.
She doesn't know that time is not like pocket money that you can spend because time is the person spending the pocket money and the pocket money is you.
—The Dead Fathers Club, Matt Haig
"What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven."
-Damned, Chuck Palahniuk
"Everything is funnier in retrospect, funnier and prettier and cooler, you can laugh at anything from far enough away"
Chuck Palahniuk ~ Consolation Prizes
"Tell me things I won't mind forgetting."
Amy Hempel ~ In the cemetery where Am Jolson is buried.
So, so, so many lines, I'll just throw out one, from High Fidelity. As my favorite novel, I feel like I could include half the book, but this is the first line from it that really got me (second page): "Those days are gone, and good fucking riddance to them; unhappiness really meant something back then. Now it's just a drag, like a cold or having no money. If you really wanted to mess me up, you should have got to me earlier."
"Specks—specks all over the third panel, see?—no, that one—the second one up from the floor and I wanted to point this out to someone yesterday but a photo shoot intervened and Yaki Nakamari or whatever the hell the designer's name is—a master craftsman not—mistook me for someone else so I couldn't register the complaint, but, gentlemen—and ladies—there they are: specks, annoying, tiny specks, and they don't look accidental but like they were somehow done by a machine—so I don't want a lot of description, just the story, streamlined, no frills, the lowdown: who, what, where, when and don't leave out why, though I'm getting the distinct impression by the looks on your sorry faces that why won't get answered—now, come on, goddamnit, what's the story?"
- Opening sentence of Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis. He's a master, a genius, at crafting the perfect run-on.
"The worst thing about being alone was that there was never anyone to turn to and say: hey, that was fucking weird, wasn't it?"
- Penny Dreadful - Will Christopher Baer
@Moon: I loved Glamorama, absolutely loved it. And that beginning, it pretty much captures the tone of the whole book. I love that it has no tags, just this rambling, worried rant about specks. So Victor.
I haven't read Penny Dreadful yet. For some retarded reason, the Los Angeles system of libraries has Kiss Me, Judas and Hell's Half-Acre but not Penny Dreadful. So I gotta wait to read more Baer.
@Josh: Who's that by? Wasn't that a movie with John Cusack? That is a great line though.
Here's one of about a million Palahniuk quotes I could post.
Most people would never admit it, but they'd been bitching since they were born. As soon as their head popped out into that bright delivery-room light, nothing had been right. Nothing had been as comfortable or felt so good. Just the effort it took to keep your stupid physical body alive, just finding food and cooking it and dishwashing, the keeping warm and bathing and sleeping, the walking and bowel movements and ingrown hairs, it was all getting to be too much work.
--Haunted, Chuck Palahniuk
High fidelity is written by Nick Hornby and was a movie starring Cusack. Hornby is awesome. Check out A Long Way Down and How to be Good. Has a lot of others but the three mentioned here are my favorites.
Hornby, eh? Cool, I'll check him out. I have so damn much to read in the next few weeks.
I could sit here and quote every remarkable line from any of Chuck Palahniuk's novels but that would take all night so I'll skip him entirely.
Did I mention I love this kind of discussion?
Cram them full of non-combustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel like they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change. Don't give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy. - Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Its deep stuff really.
In the old age black was not counted fair,
Or if it were, it bore not beauty's name;
But now is black beauty's successive heir,
And beauty slandered with a bastard shame;
For since each hand hath put on nature's power,
Fairing the foul with Art's false borrowed face,
Sweet beauty hath no name, no holy bower,
But is profaned, if not lives in disgrace.
Therefore my mistriss' eyes are raven black,
Her eyes so suited, and they mourners seem
At such who, not born fair, no beauty lack,
Sland'ring creation with a false esteem;
Yet so they mourn becoming of their woe,
That every tongue says beauty should look so.
-Sonnet 127 by Shakespeare
I dig Shakespeare, especially his sonnets and 127 has always been my favorite and I can't really say why. Its just really really pretty.
I have been mortal, and some part of me is mortal yet. I am full of tears and hunger and the fear of death, although I cannot weep, and I want nothing, and I cannot die. I am not like the others now, for no unicorm was ever born who could regret, but I do. I regret.
- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
I have more but I seem to have missplaced my notebook chock full of my favorite quotes so this is just a few highlights in some books from the shelf.
Wow, good stuff Madison. I've yet to read Fahrenheit 451, but I gotta say that quote is awesome. I'll have to check it out. Bradbury's great. I haven't read enough of his stuff.
Gonna get some Clev in here. One of many of my favorite lines from Dermaphoria.
Everything in the universe is everything else. A man is a killer is a saint is a monkey is a cockroach is a goldfish is a whale, and the Devil is just the angel who asked for More.
--Dermaphoria, Craig Clevenger
Meh, why not one more.
Only everyone forgets how seldom our memory is accurate. Having more memory is just a way of distorting a greater amount of the past.
--Dermaphoria, Clevenger
Expect the unexpected. And whenever possible, BE the unexpected.
-Lynda Barry, Cruddy
Society invents a spurious convoluted logic tae absorb and change people whae's behaviour is outside its mainstream. Suppose that ah ken aw the pros and cons, know that ah'm gaunnae huv a short life, am ay sound mind etcetera, etcetera, but still want tae use smack? They won't let ye dae it. They won't let ye dae it, because it's seen as a sign ay thir ain failure. The fact that ye jist simply choose tae reject whit they huv to offer. Choose us. Choose life. Choose mortgage payments; choose washing machines; choose cars; choose sitting oan a couch watching mind-numbing and spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fuckin junk food intae yir mooth. Choose rotting away, pishing and shiteing yersel in a home, a total fuckin embarrassment tae the selfish, fucked-up brats ye've produced. Choose life.
Trainspotting, Welsh
Holy crap, that's something. I have to read Trainspotting. I loved the movie.
The Scottish patois takes some getting used to, Redd, but Trainspotting is a solid read.
Now here's a quote from the best book I've ever read:
Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place, nothing positive, no dreams of glory or honor, just to avoid the blush of dishonor. They died so as not to die of embarrassment.
The Things They Carried, O'Brien
From Damned...
When my godfish, Mister Wiggles, died we flushed him down the toilet. When my kitten, Tiger Stripe, died I tried the same deal, and we had to call a plumber to snake the pipes.
Made me stop and laugh.
Since you put up a Chuck quote. This line from Choke has always stayed with me. Just thought it was worded really, really well. It always astounds me how much care he puts into the wording of his sentences. And my mom told me it's a reference to some other famous line? A poem as lovely as a tree?
I think that I shall never see a poem as lovely as a hot-gushing, butt-cramping, gut hosing orgasm.
--Choke, Palahniuk
@ Thuggish: Oh my god, I remember that fucking kitten. That bit was wicked. Poor Tiger Stripe. I'm glad Maddy finds him in hell. Wait was that in Damned that she found him again, or in Doomed, on earth? Can't remember.
