MetaChat - favourite quote, phrase or oneliner?

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20 August 2008

favourite quote, phrase or oneliner? →[More:]

Could be more than one. Not necessarily book-based, or snark-based either.

I remember loads of witty aphorisms from various movies/books, etc (Monty Python, Jean Shepherd, Terry Pratchett, Office Space, just to name a few).

However the one that sticks in my mind most frequently is this one from an obscure Tad Williams novel:

"Oooh, an argument! Can I play?"

Mainly because I've been able to borrow it more than once to defuse tense situations. Which can't always be said for Princess Bride references, no matter how awesome they are.

post by: lonefrontranger at: 16:44 | 28 comments

I've got two:

"We see a deadly sin on every street corner, in every home...and we tolerate it. We tolerate it because it's common...it's trivial. We tolerate it morning, noon, and night."
John Doe from Se7en

"...For even bad poetry has relevance
for what it does not say
for what it leaves out
...
(ah but to free it still
from the word-processor of the mind!)"
Lawrence Ferlinghetti "Uses of Poetry"

posted by sperose 20 August | 17:07

If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. - Thoreau

posted by mdonley 20 August | 18:14

"It's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart."
-Everett McGill in O Brother Where Art Thou.

posted by bunnyfire 20 August | 18:31

"Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginnings' End" from the song "Closing Time", band name escapes me right now...how true that line is.

posted by redvixen 20 August | 18:52

Thunder is good, thunder is impressive; but it is lightning that does all the work.
Mark Twain

posted by eekacat 20 August | 19:02

Stephen King quote - "People want to know why I do this, why I write such gross stuff. I like to tell them I have the heart of a small boy... and I keep it in a jar on my desk."

posted by spork 20 August | 19:08

'there is nothing so powerful in the universe as the force of stupidity'

i don't know who said it and likely my inability to locate it because it is a paraphrase.

posted by eatdonuts 20 August | 19:29

eatdonuts: that sounds suspiciously like Terry Pratchett to me.

posted by lonefrontranger 20 August | 19:40

Sooner or later, the day comes when you can't hide from the things that you've done anymore. - Commander William Adama, courtesy of his writers.

posted by Fuzzbean 20 August | 20:10

"I come not to destroy but to fulfill"

"I do not do evil, evil is done through me"

posted by jadepearl 20 August | 20:24

If we're going to do stupidity quotes, this is my favorite:

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein

posted by eekacat 20 August | 21:45

"I'd say what a prick, but he'd take it as a compliment"

posted by lysdexic 20 August | 21:53

This has been my favorite quote since I read Moby Dick back in my teens:

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”

- Herman Melville, Moby Dick Chapter xcvi ‘The Try-Works’

posted by kodama 20 August | 23:00

"These children that come at you with knives, they are your children. You taught them. I didn't teach them. I just tried to help them stand up.... You can project it back at me, but I am only what lives inside each and every one of you."

We all get the gods we deserve.

posted by Zack_Replica 20 August | 23:43

Nulla dies sine linea [’Not a day without a line’] - but there may well be weeks. - Walter Benjamin

posted by Daniel Charms 21 August | 00:10

"I remember when I cut off a head..."
-Bill Hicks

"And I've been praying a lot lately/Because I no longer have a TV/Just a florescent hangover that lights the way/Between the things you say and the things I see."
-Mark Eitzel

posted by black8 21 August | 00:20

"There's never a carbon monoxide leak around when you need one."

- me

posted by trondant 21 August | 00:44

"If you're looking for sympathy, you'll find it in the dictionary between 'shit' and 'syphilis'."

posted by BoringPostcards 21 August | 00:52

"Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."

posted by puke & cry 21 August | 01:04

"The heart wants what the heart wants." -- Woody Allen

(I'm not endorsing the situation that inspired the quote, but it's a good quote.)

posted by Claudia_SF 21 August | 01:27

If you sit by the river long enough, eventually you will see the body of your enemy float by.

posted by By the Grace of God 21 August | 06:08

You could not step twice into the same river, for other waters are ever flowing onto you.

posted by box 21 August | 07:14

It is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.

posted by get off of my cloud 21 August | 09:24

get off of my cloud, I was just going to post that one. Except with ask as the only verb just used once. It applies to many situations. Just DO stuff already. Of course exceptions apply.

posted by rainbaby 21 August | 09:46

Schrodinger's cat explained (Terry Pratchett, Lords & Ladies):
"In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious."

posted by Susurration 21 August | 21:17

"Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginnings' End" from the song "Closing Time", band name escapes me right now...how true that line is.
Greenday - Closing Time.

"People are no damned good" - Doug Mulray

posted by dg 22 August | 01:27

"Closing Time" is by Semisonic.

posted by BoringPostcards 22 August | 02:54

Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

If god hands you a lemon, squirt someone in the eye.

posted by elizard 30 August | 21:52

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