What are the greatest lines in literature? ?

Question

What are some of the greatest lines in literature. Just for fun, let's omit Shakespeare lines.

Answer 1

The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime.

The dog did nothing in the nighttime.

That was the curious incident.

Silver Blaze, Conan Doyle

Answer 2

It's only after you've lost everything that you're free to do anything.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK, Fight Club

The same way a compact disk isn't responsible for what's recorded on it, that's how we are. You're about as free to act as a programmed computer. You're about as one-of-a-kind as a dollar bill.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK, Invisible Monsters

"The future you have tomorrow won't be the same future you had yesterday. " Rant

"If death meant leaving the stage long enough just to change costumes and become a new character, would you speed up? Or slow down?" Haunted

Sorry, enough with Chuck P. I just love his quotes. He's good with the words. He has some intense quotes. If I could copy and paste every book he's ever written, I would. He makes you realize **** that your mind refuses to admit exists. Issues you can't face. He's in your face about it and doesn't give a **** what you say. Read his books. You'll never think the same way again.  

Answer 3

"It's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done. It's a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known." Sydney Carton from A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens

"To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."  from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest

"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Four shots ripped into my groin and I was off on the greatest adventure of my life!" from Sleep Till Noon by Max Shulman

Answer 4

Not a "classic," but my favorite recent one...

"Snobbery vied with hypochondria for preeminence as his mother's favorite pastime."  Deception of the Emerald Ring by Lauren Willig.

Maybe I just like it because it's so true in my case! :)

and this is my favorite classic quote:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. -Animal Farm, by George Orwell

Answer 5

I would have to say my favorite line is  the opening line to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."  The entire novel comes directly from this line. It has to be the best quote for the novel - I just love it.

Other good lines (which also open the novels):

It is a sin to write this. - Ayn Rand's Anthem

Call me Ishmael. - Moby d**k by Herman Melville

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times... - Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities

Answer 6

"The horror! The horror!" -Heart of Darkness

Answer 7

"My dear Watson," said he, "I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers."

Answer 8

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." - The Great Gatsby

"You've got to get obsessed and stay obsessed...keep passing the open windows." - The Hotel New Hampshire

Answer 9

"all is fair in love and war"  Shakespeare...

Answer 10

it was the best of times, it was the worst of times

Answer 11

Lolita, Lolita, fire of my loins, light of my life. My sin, my soul. (obvious where that came from)

Don't touch me. I'll die if you touch me (lolita, again)

'They're a rotton crowd! You're worth the whole d**n bunch put together!' (Nick Carraway to Gatsby in 'The Great Gatsby')

Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way (anna karenina)

Wealth is an inborn state of mind- like poverty (les enfants terribles)

I like change- it's the only sign of life (charles, in brideshead revisited)

Answer 12

How can you omit Shakespeare ~ probably the most well known:

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

Alas poor Yorrich, I knew him well.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lines would be another. (from Sherlock Holmes)

Answer 13

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."

- Brave New World

"The South," Shreve said. "The South. Jesus. No wonder you folks all outlive yourselves by years and years and years." It was becoming quite distinct; he would be able to decipher the words soon, in a moment; even almost now, now, now.

"I am older at twenty than a lot of people who have died," Quentin said.

"And more people have died than have been twenty-one," Shreve said.

- Absalom, Absalom!

"All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."

- Song of Myself

Answer 14

"The thought police would get him just the same. He had committed--would have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper--the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you."

- George Orwell, 1984, Book 1, Chapter 1