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| 2008-06-14 13:50 |
| [writing] Your favorite sentences |
| Public |
| child, writing |
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the_child and I have talked frequently about “perfect sentences.” A sentence is of course perfect only in context, but within context there can be some real humdingers. Probably my favorite (and it’s actually a phrase, part of a longer sentence) is from Terry Pratchett’s Hogfather, “Man is where the falling angel meets the rising ape.” She and I spent a good forty-five minutes one day analyzing that one.
I am also quite fond of Tom Stoppard’s line from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, “We cross our bridges when we come to them, and burn them behind us, with nothing left to show for our progress except the memory of the smell of smoke and the presumption that our eyes once watered.”
Gene Wolfe has an excellent one from Book of the New Sun, “In the end, our one unforgiveable sin is that we can only be who we are.”
All quotes from memory, and therefore likely wobbly.
This afternoon the_child asked me to ask you what your favorite sentences were — who wrote them (including yourself, that’s allowed), where they appeared, and if you like, what they mean, either to the world or to you personally.
Originally published at jlake.com. You can comment here or there.
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"What is it about homilies make you want to wretch? I mean, I'll light their silly candle, but someone's damn well going to hear about the dark."
From Parke Godwin's Firelord. I have always loved it because it describes how I work. I light the candle, but I still have to point out the darkness.
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mastadge |
| 2008-06-14 21:11 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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From lit critic and essayist John Leonard, who's very quotable but must of whose quotations are quite bitingly funny: "In the cellars of the night, when the mind starts moving around old trunks of bad times, the pain of this, the shame of that, the memory of a small boldness is a hand to hold."
Hmm. This makes me realize how many of my favorite quotations comprise more than one sentence.
Robert E. Howard: "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."
Herman Melville: "I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing."
J.P. Morgan: "A man always has two reasons for what he does -- a good one, and the real one."
This one's two sentences, but I include it because I love it so much: G.K. Chesterton: "I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid."
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| rosefox |
| 2008-06-14 21:34 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
| wistful |
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Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting" contains the most exquisite pair of lines that always makes me shiver:
On top of the world
Looking over the edge
She sings the first with a dreamy lilt that fades into painful uncertainty with the second. The meaning of being "on top of the world" is completely transformed. It's a remarkable moment and it gets me every time, even though I know it's coming.
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Easy:
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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| anghara |
| 2008-06-14 21:45 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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SOmething that has a far deeper meaning for me than I suspect it would for anyone else reading it - because Guy Gavriel Kay somehow knows what it feels like to lose a country and has distilled it into a single heart-wrenching vow for me - "Tigana, may the memory of you be a blade in my soul!"
Ask me sometime what it feels like to look into a modern atlas these days...
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| kadath |
| 2008-06-14 22:02 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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"The world was so new and different then, with a menace lurking within every flower and a bomb behind every sunrise."
Kali to Sam, Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny
"The felling secret passed through him smoothly, chillingly, fatally as a sword -- you can not write Paradise. It is here, in the stars, already writ, and you may read of it, but you can never express it or author it except through the genuflection of your silence."
Dante, In the Hand of Dante, by Nick Tosches (damn shame about the rest of that book)
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I can't decide between my favorite two:
"He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom." Gandalf, J. R. R. Tolkien
And this one... I tried to find it, but unfortunately I can't locate the book. This is a very loose approximation from an early Anne Rice: "The problem with living forever is that you have enough time to turn out just as badly as everyone always said you would."
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| joncwriter |
| 2008-06-14 22:12 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
| Mooch writing |
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Bradbury's opening line from Fahrenheit 451, "It was a pleasure to burn", is still one of my all-time faves. It's simple, and yet it conveys exactly what the book is about. Added to the fact that it's kinda creepy, if you think about it...
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"The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed." The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger by Stephen King.
Antagonist and protagonist identified: check.
Setting established: check.
Implied conflict with connotation of "fled": check
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My favorite is from Galaxies, by Barry Malzberg:
"Our youth and possibility may be stripped from us, but our failure can remain shining and constant forever."
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Oooh, I have a few.
"Time fell asleep in the golden afternoon sunshine" -- could be a misquote, I think it's Ray Bradbury - could be Vonnegut. Bugger.
"Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt." Vonnegut.
"In the beginning was the graph [...]" Greg Egan, Schild's Ladder (didn't get along with the rest of the book].
"Swans sing before they die; 'twere no bad thing/ should certain persons die before they sing." Coleridge, On a Volunteer Singer.
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| scarlettina |
| 2008-06-15 01:12 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
| English lurks in an alley |
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I don't know if this is my favorite sentence ever but I think it's a pretty fine one. (And I was just discussing this with a friend who's mainlining the Film Festival here in Seattle, so it's fresh in my mind.) It's from a film, not a book, a line of dialog from that old chestnut, "The Ten Commandment." Rameses, listening to Moses in front of the whole court, stops the courtiers from protesting Moses' heresy by saying:
"Let him rave that men shall know him mad."
That right there tells us a lot about Ramses as a character, about how he runs his court, about what he thinks of his courtiers and his opponent, and it's actually a fine way to defend the First Amendment if you're into that sort of thing.
It's also the only thing I could pull off the top of my head.
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"He was at the heart only an ape, and a dying ape into the bargain."
Edgar Rice Burroughs
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| (Anonymous) |
| 2008-06-15 01:31 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
"How should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave."
-Rainer Maria Rilke
“The innocent and the beautiful Have no enemy but time.”
-William Butler Yeats
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The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.
--Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
I've loved this sentence since first reading it more than twenty-five years ago. I'm afraid it's not very meaningful, but the way it takes simile and turns it on its head struck me as perfect.
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| frogworth |
| 2008-06-15 02:36 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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My favourite is kindof the opposite of a perfect sentence. It's perfectly meaningless, and that's why I love it:
More people have been to Russia than I have.
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| mtrimm1 |
| 2008-06-15 02:38 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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"The stars winked at each other in some stellar conspiracy, the moon hid in shadowed secrecy, and the sea took notes, reflecting the covert code of twinkles and glimmers back to the heavens as a message in response. The night breeze carried a thin shroud of mist in its grip, censoring out the naughty bits, most likely."
Okay, two sentences, bite me. I refuse to name the author.
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From The Little Prince: "because of the colour of the wheat" (where the fox is explaining why it was worth it to be tamed by the prince even though he'll be hurt by his leaving)
Also, P.G. Wodehouse has a million perfect sentences. I'm partial to, "As a dancer, in fact, he closely resembled a Newfoundland puppy trying to run across a field."
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"I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights
Sentence hits just exactly the right note in closing out that fine novel.
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| goulo |
| 2008-06-15 04:35 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
| zen |
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"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
H.P. Lovecraft's opening sentence for "The Call of Cthulhu" has proven to be a very popular sentence that nicely summarizes the cosmic horror of his stories.
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| danjite |
| 2008-06-15 04:38 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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"My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao and there is a slight flaw in my character..."
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| mtrimm1 |
| 2008-06-15 05:02 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I still believe that book is one of the greatest fantasies ever...
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I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,
dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix;
Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection
to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.
..alright so probably not terribly appropriate for the_child...let's try Dylan Thomas:
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
It is a line in his poem Do not go gentle into that night. Wiki disects it relatively well here.
It is a favourite line for me because it is a reminder that there are things that are worth fighting for, regardless of the odds...what those things are to you (or the_child) is what makes us each unique and different.
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| mythusmage |
| 2008-06-15 09:37 (UTC) |
| Being Inordinately Fond of My Creativity.. |
But first, the sentence in question was penned in response to a comment in this thread in which a chap by the name of Herb said on Sun Jun 15, 04:37:00 AM,
"Why do you have such contempt for your fellow countrymen? Do you hate this country or what?"
To which I replied,
"Herb, because some people deserve contempt. Now gloat and be dammed."
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| autopope |
| 2008-06-15 11:25 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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Hmm.
I have a personal favourite self-written opening line, and it is this: "I want you to know, darling, that I'm leaving you for another sex robot -- and she's twice the man you'll ever be," Laura explained as she flounced over to the front door, wafting an alluring aroma of mineral oil behind her. (Wodehouse. Doing SF. If you absolutely must know.)
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I have a few, all from poetry. Think of them as one, long sentence.
There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under a sea:
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtain for me . . .
Conrad Aiken
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate
T.S. Elliot.
We walk before a sun-tipped peak in silence,
Our shadows descend before us, long and blue.
Conrad Aiken
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Anything by Conrad Aiken, practically:
"And the green earth tilts through a sphere of air and bathes in a flame of space."
And for capturing character in a line:
"Unlike a book on your head, a cutlass balanced you just right."
-Tanith Lee, Piratica
"Only the veiled man was standing, wreathed in gunsmoke, lit by a cat's cradle of thin sunbeams threading through new bullet holes in the walls and roof."
-K.J. Bishop, The Etched City
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One of my favourites:
I was standing in the park wondering why a frisbee looks bigger, the closer it gets. Then it hit me.
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| kmarier |
| 2008-06-16 04:42 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
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rosefox's quote from Kate Bush is a fave. One of my current faves that I just rediscovers come from C.S. Lewis:
"Once there was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb - and he almost deserved it."
It's the opening sentence from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
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Favorite Lines:
The wind up:
Kirk: Well commander, I guess that takes care of the war. Obviously, the Organians won't let us fight.
(Aaaand -- the pitch!)
Kor: A shame, captain. It would have been glorious. (of course this line only really resonates if you picture John Colicos and that grandly silly Fu Manchu he wore while hearing him say the line)
also: "Boom" (Ivanova - B5) - the rest of which is "No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always boom tomorrow."
also: When you're walking on thin ice, you might as well dance (Jesse Winchester - song)
also: Spread your arms and hold your breath and Always trust your cape (Steve Goodman - song)
My small (now 12) has taken to asking the question "is s/he Russian?" when confronted with an exceptionally pessimistic character -- thank you B5, Ivanova and JMS ;>.
Edited at 2008-06-17 06:39 am (UTC)
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| caprine |
| 2008-06-19 21:24 (UTC) |
| (no subject) |
| bookish |
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From Tim Pratt's short story "Cup and Table", in the collection Hart and Boot: "You're made mostly of carbon atoms," Carlsbad said, "but you don't spend all your time thinking about forming long-chain molecules, do you?" It's said in reply to another character saying, "I thought you were evil. ... I mean, you're made of evil."
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