Favorite lines from your own works

Here are some of mine:

Crazy About You
Dad had worked on his teeth and found him to be perfectly normal. “Now that he’s killed his family.”

The 41st Sermon
"Christianity used the Jewish god, a god who is everything and by being everything ended up being a big fat nothing...."

One More Victim
I believe what I did was right, but why does it sit still so heavily upon my soul?

Rabbletown: Life in These United Christian States of Holy America
“We’ve got to fornicate again tonight, Bob.”
“So soon?”

The Saltness of Time
I wanted to go to her, to touch her, touch her in that manner any of us will want to touch a person we are with who is near death. But that natural instinct, I have to tell you, was wiped away by a palpable fear, a fear that if I went near her at that moment, the blast from her open soul would sear my own.

SPILL: Big Oil + Sex = Game On
...she twisted the bar towel in her hands as though wringing thoughts out of her brain.

Then and Now: the Harmony of the Instantaneous All
"And when did you fall in love with me?"
"I woke up with it the morning after I met you,"

From "Crossing the River"

Simon Winsett, Lexington pariah: "Maybe he was what townspeople said he was, a schemer. Whatever it was that characterized him, he was putting that talent to use."

James Hayworth, Acton militiaman: "He wanted to rise each morning, this terrible day recollected as a wicked dream."

Mary Hartwell, Lincoln wife and mother: "The rage that she had suppressed was bursting out. For quite some while it would dominate her underlying fear, of events she could not predict and injustices she could not repeal."

Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Percy: "In one day he had been taught a lesson that officialdom in London and officers of general rank might never comprehend."

Lieutenant William Sutherland: "How utterly inconceivable, how entirely calamitous to be born here amid these trees, hills, and onmipresent rocks!"

Corporal John Howe: "His misfortune had been that he had chosen to be a redcoat soldier. If he wanted to change that, what in fact would he gain and how might he suffer if he tried?"

The Blasted Lands

"For in that place, even the cobblestones were haunted by nameless and formless evils that had existed since the foundations of the world were laid. Iron Town was the meeting point between the world of man and the world of darkness, where things crawled and slithered that had no name and no mortal had ever laid eyes upon. It was no paradise to soothe the weary who'd come in from the wastes, rather it was merely a different sort of Hell."

The first page of Apart From Love:

About a year ago I sifted through the contents of my suitcase, and was just about to discard a letter, which my father had written to me some time ago. Almost by accident my eye caught the line, I have no one to blame for all this but myself, which I had never noticed before, because it was written in an odd way, as if it were a secret code, almost: upside down, in the bottom margin of the page, with barely a space to allow any breathing.
The words left some impression in my memory. I almost wished he were next to me, so I could not only listen to him, but also record his voice saying that.
I imagined him back home, leaning over his desk, scrawling each letter with the finest of his pens with great care, as if focusing through a thick magnifying glass. The writing was truly minute, as if he had hated giving away even the slightest hint to a riddle I should have been able to solve on my own. I detested him for that. And so, thinking him unable to open his heart to me, I could never bring myself to write back. In hindsight, that may have been a mistake.
Even so, I am only too happy to agree with him: the blame for what happened in our family is his. Entirely his. If not for his actions ten years ago, I would never have run away to Firenze, to Rome, to Tel Aviv. And if not for his actions a couple of weeks ago, this frantic call for me to come back and see him would never have been made.
And so I find myself standing here, on the threshold of where I grew up, feeling utterly awkward. I knock, and a stranger opens the door. The first thing that comes to mind: what is she doing here? The second thing: she is young, much too young for him. The third: her hair. Red.

From Pascal's Wager, my novel of a poker playing, action junkie private detective:

...as the legendary high stakes player Ted Forrest once said, if you’re not willing to risk everything, you limit your upside as a poker player. Maybe as a human being, too.

From Part 1 (of 5, so far) of my saga of eternal torment, I am not a Pet Person...

My oldest son set up a terrarium in his room and captured a newt from a small lake, and actually kept it for over two years. He named it "Tiny", reasoning that, "after all it ~is~ my newt."

"What's that about breasts, Carlisle? You can't expect Bernard here to know what's in the papers. He can't read."
(from Lane's End)

from "On Living Anyways" forthcoming from African American Review

everyone says,

“If I were a slave, I’d be a
Revolutionary:
always fighting
always hiding
always running away.”
If I were
enslaved
I would be the one
the master didn’t fuck
and the blackmen didn’t neither
the mistress couldn’t stand
and the housewomen ignored
the children always teased
and the others
Black as me
resented.

----------------------------------

from "The Failure of Monogamous Whores" ...unpublished

I always wanted to be a whore
but never had the options

defaulting between monogamy and abstinence
by mistake

---------------------------------------

from Order of the Oppressed (Novel) ...unpublished

Since compulsiveness comes to those who seek order alone, and madness always visits those who fight struggle by themselves, I sought brotherhood to make sense of the world I have been thrust into, or at least brothers to take the edge off of that which does not make sense.

I've got a number of lines I love in my most recent novel, Into the Deep, but I think these two are my favorites.

"In that moment I felt like an outcast. I felt pushed away and exiled and the loneliness of it was a boundless crater that I’d fallen into to be swallowed up by the darkness. I couldn’t go back there, not then."

"The clouds looked like glowing orange waves rolling in and crashing against the darkening sky."

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/90400724

The End

I also have a few lines from my novel The Art of Magic Realm of the Castles, but I think this is the most apt because of how men behave when a woman goes into labour; also how underneath a soldiers hard exterior is a man who really does panic more than a woman;

Seb and Alex screamed like two girls and hot footed off out of the house yelling “Help the baby’s coming…Sabien…HELP!!!!”

"Dear Father,
Today you were officially declared dead."

the opening lines of my novel, Whorticulture

"At a grocery store, my vision rebels against me. The lights are far too bright all of a sudden. The isles seem impossibly long and are twisting and warping before me. The people become horrible reflections in a funhouse mirror. I'm dizzy and disoriented, sweaty and shaking. I'm reacting physically to my irrational terror. I want to vomit. My heart is beating way to fast... way to hard! I think I can actually see it kicking against my chest! Paralyzed, I want to run, but I can’t!"

~ Chapter 2, Surviving the Fourth Cycle

http://www.survivingthefourthcycle.com

A fin, a flap, a froth of waves
The breaker rises, then it caves
The boat will sink and so will I
No one around to hear my cry
Food flakes afloat, the flick of tails
I pray for wind to fill my sails
I pray that I may stay the course
And ride the wave, or maybe force
My way deep down under the tide
So I may flee, so I may hide
In Jaffa bay, or in Tarshish
And not be swallowed by a fish

To read more, click the link
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/11/a-fin-flap-froth-of-waves.html

“She had finally learned the significance of the ending of the Mayan calendar: Elvis and Liberace were clearly coming back from the dead.”

MGP

#14."And not be swallowed by a fish?" That's a bit of a desperate rhyme - or does it refer to something that actually happened?

In re #10. LadyClare, your modesty is a standing rebuke to eveything else on this page, good though much of it is. So, when will we actually see some of your work? Your Profile page indicates nothing (still, nice picture). -- Goddard Graves

Any mortals who have known my darker side haven't lived long enough to know my pain.

It was amazing how a room could fill up with her presence, or a stage, an afternoon, an evening.

As with all self-praise, this looks like fun. Surprising that it isn't more active. I apologize for offering not one line but two paragraphs.

From Hide the Child, a contemporary romance:

Diamond beams smote through the windshield—a brilliant display in the black of night and space. But starlight was cold—the stars isolate and alone in vasty darkness.

As was he.

A prayer from a battle chaplain in the second book of Kydona.

“Where rests thy pride now, oh wicked? For thy fields lie barren, and thy table is set with not bread but ash! I have slain thy sons, vile sinner, and my hand has cast thy house down! Amen I say, no citadel may stand but that of heaven! My wrath is fallen, unbeliever! This day you shall stand before God!”

Alternatively, from a line from my comedic relief character, Vernon de Gauthier:
"We're going whoring, we're going whoring, we're going whoring…"

In re #21. So please don't leave us in a state of unrelieved tumescence. Does Vernon extend an invite to the chaplain, and does the chaplain accept (if only in the spirit of, ahem, missionary endeavour)? Write, 'phone, or visit with Reply.

Oh that did it. You sent me scurrying for the dictionary, haha. The chaplain, sadly for him, remains chaste.

I resist the temptation to extend him a helping hand, except metaphorically speaking.

Snow melts from sage:

no loss, no gain,

nothing to spare.

“If you knew all that God knows, God would be rather limited.”

“Words jump into lines; lines jump into minds; thoughts jump into hearts.”

“Disbelieving is a form of belief. Not believing in God is to believe in disbelieving. Arguing that people do not believe is like arguing that people do not breathe.”

-The Point: The Redemption of Oban Ironbout.

To read more visit www.estillyen.com.

Over in Hobnob with Author's we're playing a game where you are allowed to post a whole 200 word snippet from one of your works... but only if it fits the theme. The current theme is gift giving.(Please read rules before posting.)

I find it interesting how much easier I find it to come up with a snippet that fits a theme, than to pick a "favorite line" to share. Most of my favorite lines don't stand alone at all well. That seems to be what I like about them, actually.

I tend to squee over lines like:
"So you devised an experiment to test the hypothesis. I trust you found the results conclusive."
and
"I've always liked dogs, especially puppies."

Those two lines apparently ordinary lines, spoken by two very different characters happen to be saying pretty much the exact same thing: "Yes, I really do love you." Nobody would guess that was what was going on if I just posted the lines themselves. :(

But that's what excites me when I write -- when my characters say something in a way that is purely that character and only that character.

The first line of my murder mystery, TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE:

"The dirty clothes and foul body odor were a lethal combination, infusing the already cloying humidity with a pervasive stink."

Admittedly, it's not exactly pretty prose, but I think it effectively sets up the scene.

I have three published novels:
Good Intentions (literary): Of all the ways to die! Such an ordinary death.

Dead Men and Cats (novella): The enclosure triggered disturbing images of concentration camps and prisons, so she deliberately dropped her eyes, kept them down until she saw Sheriff Johnson's dark brown boots stop, the tips of their toes edging into an oil-slicked puddle.

Sketch of a Murder: (Book 1 Special Crimes Team series): The sun's rays burst through the side window, dusting his midnight skin with golden light.

Thanks for this thread. It was fun reading everyone's lines. And trying to decide which lines I liked best from my own work.

In my third book, Silver Verity, there's a royal wedding at the end. Leading up to it, Count Edward is talking with Princess Rebecca about King Wilson:
“I do not know him well,” I admitted, “but if he is anything at all like Queen Dianna, he will be the first to point out that while an apple does not fall far from the tree, a nut usually travels a great distance.”
Edward struggled against it for a moment, then surrendered to his sense of humor and laughed.

MAKE IT TODAY: You need to read this book – it is designed to help everyone who is willing to read it. I write it to try and put light where there is darkness. Then be advised – to spot this book like a voice crying out in the wilderness. Quite frankly, you could say, this is one of the ways I choose to help with evangelizing the world. The book is to heed men and women from all walks of life to seek the Lord. Then, regardless of your past belief, re-consider and know that there is a God in heaven who promises help. Fear not, that you might’ve been previously misinformed – in a way that put you off track with God or in spite of how you might’ve suffered in the past. You need to look ahead, where there are better days, for the past is gone.

From one of my sermons:

When you grow during times of prosperity, you tend to grow fat. When you grow during times of adversity, you tend to grow strong.

Looks like I'm reviving a near-dormant thread, but I stumbled across it and just had to add:

"So, get this. In the course of trying to make sense of life, I found my road on the other side of a man who played no favorites. He killed whomever he needed to: black, white and everything in between.
And of course this whole mess also involved a girl, but she wasn’t my wife."

Killing the Man, 2014.

From my second book, Draconia: Fractured Dream...

The two main characters, Varthikes and Audwin, just had a major disagreement.

AUDWIN: “Varthikes, I’m sorry I lost my temper with you. Sarkiphing is right, and you’re right. Your youngling is a lot more vulnerable right now than Amity is. We have to save yours first.”

VARTHIKES: "I accept your apology. I, too, should apologize. I should have been more sympathetic than I was with your situation. Never should I have suggested that young Amity might already be dead."

AUDWIN: “Sarkiphing told me there’s reason to believe she’s still alive.”

VARTHIKES: "I am pleased very much to hear that."

AUDWIN: “So, we’re...friends again?”

VARTHIKES: "Never have we ceased being, dear Audwin. As the peace between our two kinds fracture, more imperative is it now than ever that we remain united. Once my stripling is safe, I will help you rescue young Amity."

AUDWIN: “Thank you, dear Varth.”

VARTHIKES: "I am her uncle, after all, am I not?"

From my third book, Draconia: Rehatching, which is loaded with great moments...

SARKIPHING: "You go on."

GENISA: “I will wait with you. The cove is just over the next rise.”

SARKIPHING: "Go then, she urged the Human. I will catch up. I need just to rest for a while. But suppose those fighters fly over and see us. No reason there is that both of us should die. I can distract them and give you a chance to get to safety. No good I will be in my condition, anyway, to help you retake the colony."

GENISA: “Come on, Sarkiphing. After seven cycles, you should know me better than that. I don't want you to survive just because you'd be useful. You're a friend—to me, to the children, to the colony. Draconians are loyal to their friends, isn't that what you told me?”

SARKIPHING: "It is."

GENISA: “Well, I'm loyal to my friends. I won't abandon you.”

SARKIPHING: "Pleased I am that you value our friendship as much as I do."

GENISA: “Well, I'm also a little afraid of how Vithglen would react if we returned without you.”

CAPTAIN JOHNSON (speaking to a flight of dragons, just they join a squadron of fighters for battle):

“I realize that the common opinion among dracfolk regarding Humans has never been especially high since we first arrived. And, I realize that opinion plummeted after the recent attack on this Range—the attack that broke seven cycles of peace that many on both sides have worked hard to build and maintain. And, I admit: there were Humans involved—individuals who were against a peaceful coexistence. Our government left your world vulnerable to the current situation—Norseen, the true masters of that first attack, establishing a foothold on your world in order to exploit your fellow Draconians.”

(fighters approach)

“I know we've made mistakes and that we can never fully make up for them, but I do hope that we can regain your trust. The trust that once existed between us for seven cycles. As a gesture toward that end, we are prepared to join with you in battle to drive off the invading Norseen.”

(fighters are now roaring overhead)

“We wish to join with you as allies! Combine our lasers with your flame! To show the Norseen that, despite their efforts, we are again united, stronger than before! May we fly with you?”

(dragons roar in agreement)

DYLAN (his last words as he flies head-on with a nuke): “Bring it on. Just you and me. Let's go out with a great big—!” (BOOM!!!!)

The tailor’s nose went up, and he looked down it at my mother. She parried with her left eyebrow.
(From The Last Day of Forever)

My sister stared off into the woods as if she were oblivious to what had just happened. Either she was indeed dazed and confused, not an unusual condition for her, or she had just felt the sharp point of my mother’s elbow in her ribs as warning not to interfere.
(From The Last Day of Forever)

The smile disappeared and his eyes narrowed. “You might say I’m a mechanic. If something needs fixing, I fix it, but if something needs breaking—I break it.”
(From An Eternity of Four Years)

“Get up and I will give more of that. You stay down there where you belong, you shallow ditch!”
My father leaned over and whispered, “Did she say ‘ditch’ or something else?”
I wasn’t rightly sure. “I think she said ‘ditch,’ but intended the something else?”
(From An Eternity of Four Years)

“Shut up, Taylor, because you knew, also—and chose not to tell me! Yes, you knew, and then you told me he was dead!”
I turned to my father and whispered, “I was dead?”
He shook his head. “Not that I was aware of.”
(From An Eternity of Four Years)

Lane Casteix

...while an apple does not fall far from the tree, a nut usually travels a great distance.

I love this one!

So, i write a lot of Slam Poetry to be performed and here's some stuff from that-

Loves me not

"I have pictures of you in old photo frames, and screenshots of conversations and every time I look at those
a part of me breaks, becomes so light and floats away.
How do you think I got so skinny? I ate alright, but my heart was heavy with love and now there’s nothing.
My mother looks at me and worries,
my best friend last week said “remember when you used to smile with your eyes?”

To you. And to Her.

"If I could I would shoot moons through your bedroom window
build rainbows of your smiles and keep them forever —
I’d live in a town lit up by your eyes."

Bloody brilliant to the user who wrote the opening lines of Whorticulture.

"A book...with one glance it's just a bunch of random black lines and squiggles, a rather ugly form of art. But upon further examination these small insignificant black lines transform into letters, 26 different letters to be exact, that will then, by some magic, change from seemingly random orders of letters into words. As this happens another transformation begins to occur, a story begins to appear, but here is the best part, out of seven billion people not a single one will experience the story in the exact same way."

" it's not about being the best of a people, but to be the best of yourself."

From Missing at Sea

We saw the famous mosaic of the dog, cave canum, tried not to look too closely at some of the paintings both on the doors and on the inside walls of men with huge phalluses and admired those of the women in various poses and dress. It was very hot, even at this early hour and there was very little shade as we walked down the long, straight streets amongst the dust and volcanic ash, which is still lying around today.

Once the crew of the Cosmo was on board and away, Angelica (finally recovered from her shock) threw neutronic warheads at the narrow gap around the entrance to Hacx space. The gravimetric distortions of the area had created a natural bottle trap, Angelica just capped the bottle with a barrier of disruptive energies. “Judy if you’d do the honours and take care of those ships in the bottle.” She watched at the remaining few Stelline ships all exploded, ending the immediate Hacx crisis. “And we’re done here, good work everyone. We’re meeting back at Castle Blood, before we regroup to take on the larger problem in front of us.”
“Leokaizana’s missing egg cup?” Becky joked on the conference call.
“What?” Leokaizana panicked. “Which one?”

from a book I'm on editing atm:

Becky exited the triple-t pod Leslie, her shoulders slumped and her cheeks covered in fresh tears. How did such a simple mission go so wrong? How had she not seen the obvious trap? Ten thousand Stelline had ambushed the two of them, they had no chance. Becky had tried to magic them to safety, but Carly had pushed her back into Leslie, yelled at Avril to save her and then charged off into battle. Damn Avril and Leslie for following orders. She could have saved them, Becky knew she could have done it. She had to make the report, the corridor felt lonelier than she thought possible. An hour ago, she was here with Carly, her friend and ally. Now Carly was gone, fallen in battle, sacrificing herself. Becky felt unworthy of the cost, she wanted to go back, fully armed and armoured, take them all out, drench them in blood. She had to report in first, she had to speak the words, she had to tell everyone what had happened. In that instant Carly would go from a living vibrant memory of someone who was an active part of their lives to the memory of someone who was now only in their pasts, nevermore to help them, or critique their shoes. She could see now that war wasn’t just fighting, being daring and glorious victory, it was losing people too, losing friends, and missing them. That was the hard part, that was what made it war, not just messing about with swords and spells.

From Leaper: Down to Earth.

"Why I could fall half-way to Earth and still be on my first blow of the o-ring oboe. And that — well that's an olfactory sound cloud that those tumbling tin cans can't replicate."

It's very context-specific, but honestly I just enjoyed using weird terms for "fart". There are way more in this section of the book... :)

I have nothing to say but that I have nothing to say (and I can see no point in telling you that there is no point in telling you this).

Yesterday was the dream, today the reality and tomorrow, the nightmare.

The stupid complicate things to appear clever but the really intelligent simplify things to be clever.

“When the cancer got really bad, she started to forget. It was little things at first; she would ask a question, and a few minutes later, she’d ask it again. Then, there was a moment - just a few seconds - where she forgot who I was, she remembered, but things were never the same again. I took care of my mother until her last breath, but, by the end, all I was to her was some girl who came in to her room sometimes. Do you know who she didn’t forget? That f**ker. That f**ker who had just left her all those years ago. That f**ker who had treated her like s**t for years. She used to tell me how he had visited her in the hospital when she really began to lose it, and when she finally went and it was all over, she had cried for him for hours. I had to tell her over and over again: ‘Mom, Dad isn’t coming. Brody isn’t around anymore’, but she just kept going. Just try and imagine it: caring for someone so deeply that they were the last thing on your mind when everything else was gone - they were the only thing you wanted with you on your deathbed. Now, imagine them not giving two squirts of piss about you.”

“Throughout this project I have been filled with grace in many ways. Indeed, I can feel God’s Providential hand at work in my life, often quite powerfully. And I have been the beneficiary of what I can only describe as miracles. Some pertain to this work. I would like to share a few of them with you because from the start I felt I was drawn to engage in this project through the call of the Holy Spirit and these events only confirm that this project was blessed from the start. I share with you not to boast, but so you may see that God often actually works powerfully in one’s life, even in seemingly little things, for it is always to His greater glory. This is why we should share such stories with each other. For if we choose to retain secretly what He has given us, it does not work for His greater glory, but for our own destruction.”
― Donna Perpetua, Ancient Examples: St. Justin Martyr and St. Perpetua

The woman in pink leaned down and stroked his black hair, brushing it away from his eye. He tried to speak, but his jaw shook and he choked on the words. “It’ll be OK,” she whispered, “Everything will be just fine.” A tear rolled from her eye and dropped onto his skin, leaving a burn mark where it landed. He opened his mouth again, but still the words just wouldn’t come out. Now the tears were streaming down his cheeks as he mouthed nonexistent letters that spelled out I can’t forgive you.
- Emma Davis, Night Shift

The hallucinations screamed, so loud. He could hear them screeching, swooping around the room, wailing and shrieking, absorbing in and out of the ceiling. White teardrops fell onto the floor with a sizzling sound. They fell onto him, burned his skin.
- He Can't Remember Where He Saw Blue Sky

There was a soft, whispered word spoken from deep down in the saguaro's fleshy gullet. There was a whispered word somewhere in the desert.
- The Coyote Did not Notice

Nightmares will rear their fiery black heads, tongues lashing, mouths foaming, until the end of human existence. She pinched herself. Hard. Her leg bled, but not the leg she had pinched.
- The Coyote Did not Notice

So the men delivered their mahogany box, and black cloth was unfolded. They dug a hole in her and filled it with chemicals. They dug a hole in the ground and filled it with her. But the sky disagreed with our red eyes, lit up the black cloth on our skin. It should have rained, like in movies. But instead, the sun shed tears of light on us, and the grass glimmered with dew.
- Diana

He was sitting on the white sheets. She looked up at him. Beneath him, the sheets were dyed red. He was smiling, but his face was so bloody. Then she would look at his chest. He was still wearing that bloodstained lab coat. There were three holes in his abdomen. They were pumping blood like gasoline onto his shirt. He was still holding the rabbit in his arms, but it now looked satanic, blood-soaked, eyes gleaming a little, like flames in the night. Her father smiled at her, kind brown eyes glassy and still.
- Before I Sleep (a novella)

>1 randyattwood:

I've got a few favorites:

"Beware, Beloved. Nothing is free. Not even from me." - The Grim Reaper, to a mortal who found his cloak.

"You're risking your sanity! You're risking your life!"
"You don't understand. It's like, a /really/ soft hoodie." - Two human friends arguing over The Grim Reaper's cloak.

"There is no grief heavier than a mother's for her child." - A Wildflower Faerie begrudgingly agreeing to help her rival out of pity.

"As a mystic, I accept the nature of reality, and the reality of nature. When my meditative waters are calm and still, then so am I. But when the depths are stormy with tempests, I'll rage with them." A Lotus Faerie threatening an enemy.