Best Line(s) of Dialogue?

[kelby_lake]

There's been a lot of threads about general lines, but what are the most memorable lines of dialogue from a character? (This can be novels, plays, short stories...anything with dialogue in it)

[dfloyd]

"My name is Bond, James Bond."

[kiki1982]

' Sir William LucaS: What a charming amusement for young people [dancing] is, Mr Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies.
Mr Darcy: Certainly, sir, and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world. Every savage can dance.'

:lol: That cracked me up the first time! It is it such a good one-liner and ever so real!

'- Mr d'Artangan, dit le roi ravi, faites donc chercher un carosse pour mademoiselle.
- Sire, répondit le capitaine, le carosse attend.'

'- Mr d'Artagnan, said the king over the moon, please get a coach for mademoiselle.
- Sire, answered the captain, the coach is waiting.'

That really really got to me. After a few thousand pages of d'Artagnan, you know he is a very dutiful servant and wants to be one, but he still surprised you with his wit and his duty. There are not many writers who could draw a character so well and still surprise you with it after such a long time. He almost became real in the end. SPOILER D'Artagnan just knew that La Vallière and Louis would make up and summoned a coach straight away. SPOILER OVER That was such a cute passage that even Dumas made the king give the following comment:

- Oh j'ai là le modèle des serviteurs! s'écria le roi.
(- Oh! I do have a model of a servant! cried the king)
And then d'Artagnan's frustration over the last years:

- Tu as mis le temps à t'en apercevoir, murmura d'Artagnan, flatté, toutefois, de la louange.
(- You certainly have taken your time to realise, murmured d'Artagnan, still flattered at the praise.)

He can be so delightfully coarse sometimes (using the informal form of 'you' in the French, and that about a king!).

[Dark Muse]

I thought this was hysterical, it made me laugh out loud. From McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"

"I going to shoot you graveyard dead"

[Gregory Samsa]

"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" - from The Little Prince

[Scheherazade]

Lady Bracknell: To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.

From Importance of Being Earnest by Wilde

[Silas Thorne]

"This is a handy cove," says he at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop. Much company, mate?"

My father told him no, very little company, the more was the pity.

"Well, then," said he, "this is the berth for me. Here you, matey," he cried to the man who trundled the barrow; "bring up alongside and help up my chest. I'll stay here a bit," he continued. "I'm a plain man; rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you're at-- there"; and he threw down three or four gold pieces on the threshold. "You can tell me when I've worked through that," says he, looking as fierce as a commander.

__________________________

And this one:

The voices stopped at once, all but Dr. Livesey's; he went on as before speaking clear and kind and drawing briskly at his pipe between every word or two. The captain glared at him for a while, flapped his hand again, glared still harder, and at last broke out with a villainous, low oath, "Silence, there, between decks!"

"Were you addressing me, sir?" says the doctor; and when the ruffian had told him, with another oath, that this was so, "I have only one thing to say to you, sir," replies the doctor, "that if you keep on drinking rum, the world will soon be quit of a very dirty scoundrel!"

The old fellow's fury was awful. He sprang to his feet, drew and opened a sailor's clasp-knife, and balancing it open on the palm of his hand, threatened to pin the doctor to the wall.

The doctor never so much as moved. He spoke to him as before, over his shoulder and in the same tone of voice, rather high, so that all the room might hear, but perfectly calm and steady: "If you do not put that knife this instant in your pocket, I promise, upon my honour, you shall hang at the next assizes."

Then followed a battle of looks between them, but the captain soon knuckled under, put up his weapon, and resumed his seat, grumbling like a beaten dog.

"And now, sir," continued the doctor, "since I now know there's such a fellow in my district, you may count I'll have an eye upon you day and night. I'm not a doctor only; I'm a magistrate; and if I catch a breath of complaint against you, if it's only for a piece of incivility like tonight's, I'll take effectual means to have you hunted down and routed out of this. Let that suffice."

'Treasure Island', Robert Louis Stevenson

[kiki1982]

'... volgens mijn bescheiden mening is alles wat geen leven is, literatuur... De muziek verzet zich al zolang ze bestaat, het gaat op en neer, ze wil zich bevrijden van het woord, uit afgunst denk ik, maar onderwerpt zich uiteindelijk toch altijd.'

'... in my modest opinion everything that is not life is literature... Music has resisted that for as long as it has been in existence, it goes up and down, it wants to free itself from the word, out of envy I think, but finally always subjects itself anyway.'

(The Siege of Lisbon - Saramago) Very odd man, the corrector...

[kelby_lake]

"You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed" - from The Little Prince

Love it.

[Lord Macbeth]

"To be or not to be, that is the question."

Prince Hamlet on life.

"A tale told by an idiot,
Full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

Lord Macbeth on life.

Best two lines in my opinion...certainly in plays, and certainly they're up there...

[JuniperWoolf]

I've always liked...

Benvolio: In love?
Romeo: Out.
Benvolio: Of love?
Romeo: Out of her favour where I am in love.

I just like how the words go together.

[Seasider]

"He jests at scars who never felt a wound." Romeo to Mercutio who is teasing him about his current love object

[Lord Macbeth]

Both GREAT lines by Romeo...most of the characters in the play, and the play itself, are not nearly as developed and fleshed-out as later Shakespearean creations, but here are a couple of examples of what makes Shakespeare such a great playwright and worker of words...and where he was heading with his craft.

[kelby_lake]

I love this bit from Measure for Measure. I just love the way Angelo starts the soliloquy. Very underrated:


ISABELLA
'Save your honour!

Exeunt ISABELLA, LUCIO, and Provost

ANGELO
From thee, even from thy virtue!
What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine?
The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?
Ha!
Not she: nor doth she tempt: but it is I
That, lying by the violet in the sun,
Do as the carrion does, not as the flower,
Corrupt with virtuous season. Can it be
That modesty may more betray our sense
Than woman's lightness? Having waste ground enough,
Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary
And pitch our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!
What dost thou, or what art thou, Angelo?
Dost thou desire her foully for those things
That make her good? O, let her brother live!
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,
That I desire to hear her speak again,
And feast upon her eyes? What is't I dream on?
O cunning enemy, that, to catch a saint,
With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous
Is that temptation that doth goad us on
To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,
With all her double vigour, art and nature,
Once stir my temper; but this virtuous maid
Subdues me quite. Even till now,
When men were fond, I smiled and wonder'd how.

[Emil Miller]

"Other people are quite dreadful. The only possible society is oneself."

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde.

This sounded amusing but a litte extreme until I read The Wasteland by T.S.Eliot:

When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said—
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you
To get yourself some teeth. He did, I was there.
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,
He's been in the army four years, he wants a good time,
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.
Others can pick and choose if you can't.
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for lack of telling.
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.
(And her only thirty-one.)
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)
The chemist said it would be alright, but I've never been the same.
You are a proper fool, I said.
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What you get married for if you don't want children?
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot—
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night.

[indigo dormant]

Most memorable? Readily available in my word documents.

“Defend yourself, “ the judges said.
“No,” the accused said.
“Why?” But you must.”
“Not yet. I want you to take your full responsibility.”

From one of the sententious notebooks of Camus.




‘Your code of morals. What code, if I may ask?’
‘Comprehension.’

Rieux and Tarrou speaking in The Plague respectively.




AST.: What a change in his nature!
ROS.: How clever and wise he is!
SEG.: Why are you surprised? Why are you astonished, when my teacher was a dream, and in my anxiety I’m afraid I may wake up again and find myself once more in my locked cell? And even if that doesn’t happen, merely dreaming it might is enough: for in that way I came to know that all of human happiness passes by in the end like a dream, and I wish today to enjoy mine for as long as it lasts, asking pardon for our faults, since it so befits noble hearts to pardon them!

Closing lines of Life is a Dream.

[kelby_lake]

Any others?

[aliengirl]

Yes, here are some.
From 'Rhinoceros' by Eugene Ionesco

Berenger: I sometimes wonder if I exist myself.
Jean: You don't exist, my dear Berenger, because you don't think. Start thinking, then you will.
(Act I, Scene I)
Just love it. Wonder what would Descartes say.
And here is some more from the same play-

Logician: Here is an example of syllogism. The cat has four paws. Isidore and Fricot both have four paws. Therefore Isidore and Fricot are cats.
Old Gentleman: My dog has got four paws.
Logician: Then it's a cat.
(Act I, Scene I)
That really made me laugh out loud.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

All of The Importance of Being Ernest.

[Dark Passenger]

'You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake' - Tyler Durden