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| Manuel: I tell her! You got to see girl...in bedroom. You crazy about this girl. OK? OK. So you go up to look at her...Mrs. Fawlty...(shrug) She go crazy. Basil imitates the shrug, then advances on Manuel, picks him up, turns him upside down and shakes him furiously. Basil : I am punishing you for being alive. And as long as you go on being alive, I shall go on...(then he notices Mrs. Abbott, returning from the bathroom, who is standing watching him; he drops Manuel and pretends to lecture him) Now that's how an Englishman would do it, you see. [John Cleese and Connie Booth,The Complete Fawlty Towers,1977,locate] |
| His father had said words that took out his white blood and put Indian blood in its place. His white thoughts and meanness had been wiped away and the brave thoughts of the Indian put in their stead. Ever since, he had been True Son, the blood of Cuyloga and flesh of his flesh. [Conrad Richter,The Light in the Forest,1953,locate] |
| There was a big number over the door of the building. The number was five. Before the Americans could go inside, their only English-speaking guard told them to memorize their simple address, in case they got lost in the big city. Their address was this: "Schlachthof-fünf". Schlachthof meant slaughterhouse. Fünf was good old five. [Kurt Vonnegut Jr.,Slaughterhouse-Five,1969,locate] |
| The invasion of the United States by the expeditionary force of the duchy of Grand Fenwick was under way nearly two hours before anyone in an official position, or indeed any position at all, realized that such a thing was taking place. [Leonard Wibberley,The Mouse that Roared,1954,locate] |
| Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash, --he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed by like a whirlwind. [Washington Irving,The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,1819-20,locate] |
| But Arthur, 'We sit King, to help the wronged Through all our realm. The woman loves her lord. Peace to thee, woman, with thy loves and hates! The kings of old had doomed thee to the flames, Aurelius Emrys would have scourged thee dead, And Uther slit thy tongue: but get thee hence-- Lest that rough humour of the kings of old Return upon me! Thou that art her kin, Go likewise; lay him low and slay him not, But bring him here, that I may judge the right, According to the justice of the King: Then, be he guilty, by that deathless King Who lived and died for men, the man shall die.' [Lord Alfred Tennyson,Idylls of the King,1859-85,locate] |
| "Spidermonkey Island," he read out slowly. Then he whistled softly beneath his breath. "Of all the extraordinary things! You've hit upon the very island where Long Arrow was last seen on earth-- I wonder--Well, well! How very singular!" "We'll go there, Doctor, won't we?" I asked. "Of course we will. The rules of the game say we've got to." [Hugh_Lofting,The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle,1923,locate] |
| The learned gentleman took the glass out of his eye and said--'I beg your pardon,' in a very soft, quiet pleasant voice--the voice of a gentleman who has been to Oxford. [Edith Nesbit,The Story of the Amulet,1906,locate] |
| 'We've done our best to put it around as a surprise tactical exercise. Bit thin, but it makes for something to say. Had to say something. Trouble is, for all we know it may be some little trick of our own gone wrong. So much damned secrecy nowadays that nobody knows anything. Don't know what the other chap has; don't even know what you may have to use yourself. [John Wyndham,The Midwich Cuckoos,1957,locate] |
| See how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O that I were a glove upon that hand, That I might touch that cheek! [William Shakespeare,The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet,1594-96,locate] |
| When we get the final numbers, they will be more than we can bear. [Mayor Rudy Giuliani,press conference,Sept 11th 2001] |
| This epitaph appears on the grave of Madge MacConnal, 1903-16, in the Pine Lake Anglican Church Cemetary east of Red Deer. But O for the touch of a vanished hand And the sound of a voice that is still. [Nancy Millar,Remember Me as You Pass By,1994,locate] |
| She never made eight years, she died by accident. She died with a grin on her beautiful face. She died saying, 'I bet Mister God lets me get into heaven for this', and I bet he did too. [Fynn,Mister God, This is Anna,1974,locate] |
| It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way [Charles Dickens,A Tale Of Two Cities,1859,locate] |
| Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which. [George Orwell,Animal Farm,1945,locate] |
| Instinctively, Hermie put his hand to her cheek and pressed her closer to him, his other arm slipping about the small of her back, where he could feel the soft crying and hold the gently racking figure. [Herman Raucher,Summer of '42,1971,locate] |
| Needless to say, many other people observed the stranger's entry to Tullivers. Thrush Green, to the unitiated, might have seemed remarkably quiet that morning. The school- children apart, not more than two or three people were to be seen. There were, of course, almost a dozen unseen - hidden behind curtains, screened by garden shrubs, or cocking a curious eye from such vantage points as porches and wood sheds. [Miss Read,News from Thrush Green,1971,locate] |
| "Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?" asked the police. "Of course not," said the husband. "The unicorn is a mythical beast." "That's all I wanted to know," said the psychiatrist. "Take her away. I'm sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird." So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after. [James Thurber,Fables for Our Time: A Unicorn in the Garden,1940,locate] |
| Mr. Watson [Senior]... said 'There aren't any categories of problems here. There's just one problem. Some of us aren't paying enough attention to our customers.' [Thomas J. Peters and Robert H. Waterman Jr.,In Search of Excellence: Lessons From America's Best Run Companies,1982,locate] |
| As a missionary priest making his first pilgrimage to the Vatican, as a paramount chief of equatorial Africa mounting the Eiffel Tower, Dennis Barlow, poet and pet's mortician, drove through the Golden Gates. [Evelyn Waugh,The Loved One,1948,locate] |
| GRANDMA: (To DADDY) When she was no more than eight years old she used to climb up on my lap and say, in a sickening little voice, "When I gwo up, I'm going to mahwy a wich old man; I'm going to set my wittle were end right down in a tub o' butter, that's what I'm going to do." And I warned you, Daddy; I told you to stay away from her type. I told you to. I did. [Edward Albee,The American Dream,1960,locate] |
| "I am here, Petrie--and I bear credentials from the very highest sources--because, quite by accident, I came upon a clew. Following it up, in the ordinary course of routine, I obtained evidence of the existence and malignant activity of a certain man. At the present stage of the case I should not be justified in terming him the emissary of an Eastern Power, but I may say that representations are shortly to be made to that Power's ambassador in London." [Sax Rohmer,The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu,1913,locate] |
| The people in the stories never survived by strength, only by cleverness. A human being was a small, fragile animal with skin that could be punctured and bones that broke. The only way to stay alive was to think clearly. [Thomas Perry,Vanishing Act,1995,locate] |
| Elizabeth kissed him, a little absently, on the tip of the nose. 'You've still got a lot to learn about me, my precious. Didn't you know that my first books were works of popular criminology? I'm generally supposed to understand something about the subject.' [Edmund Crispin,Swan Song,1947,locate] |
| Miss Curley sat in her corner, placid and apparently lost in thought. Those who knew her were used to Curley 'staring through them' and her habit was a time-honoured joke in the office. She found it very useful. Her faded blue eyes were difficult to see behind the gold-rimmed spectacles, and it was, therefore, never easy to be sure whether they were focussed upon one or not. [Margery Allingham,Flowers for the Judge,1936,locate] |
| "Get him? Huh! I'll get him, watch my smoke!" It was young ambition speaking in a certain set of rooms in Washington. Three days later young ambition lay in a New York gutter with a bullet in his heart and a look of such horror and surprise on his dead face that even the ambulance-doctor who found him felt shaken. [Mary Roberts Rinehart,the Bat,1926,locate] |
| The sun wandered up higher into the sky, and after a time there came a sound of hammering from the yard of old Aldones, the coffin-maker. The cyclamen had come awake, and the breezes carried their fragrance to us from across the fields. [Roger Zelazny,This Immortal,1965,locate] |
| Gillespie swiveled to face Tibbs, an amused smile dawning on his face. "Don't tell me you bought that kid's story. I thought you were supposed to be the hotshot cop, the deadly manhunter, the Sherlock of the Pacific. If you're a cop I'm an anteater." [John Ball,In the Heat of the Night,1965,locate] |
| Race said grimly: "She hasn't disappeared. She's here--under the bed...." [Agatha Christie,Death on the Nile,1937,locate] |
| 'I will not bias your mind by suggesting theories or suspicions, Watson.' said he; 'I wish you simply to report facts in the fullest possible manner to me, and you can leave me to do the theorizing.' [Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,The Hound of the Baskervilles,1901,locate] |
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