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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Favorite Lines: Salinger and Others

Some lines of literature just get stuck in my head. I don't know why. They're each perfect in some elusive way I don't think I can pinpoint. The first time I read them, I felt a shiver down my spine and a thrill in my soul, like hearing my voice echo back to me. I just know. They are perfect.

From Salinger's short story "Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut": "'I was a nice girl,' she pleaded, 'wasn't I?'"

From Salinger's "For Esme--with Love and Squalor: "You take a really sleepy man, Esme, and he always stands a chance of again becoming a man with all his fac-with all his f-a-c-u-1-t-i-e-s intact."

From T.S. Eliot's poem "The Waste Land": "'They called me the hyacinth girl.'"

From T.S. Eliot's poem "The Long Song of J. Alfred Prufrock": "'That is not what I meant at all./ That is not it, at all.'"

From Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The Fish": "...everything/ was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!/And I let the fish go."

From Sylvia Plath's poem "Lady Lazarus": "Out of the ash/ I rise with my red hair/ And I eat men like air."

From John Webster's play "The Duchess of Malfi": "'Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust.'"

From Sara Teasdale's poem "Moon's Ending": "How good to go, light into light, and still/ Giving light, dying."

From Edmond Rostand's play "Cyrano de Bergerac": "'I have loved but one man all my life, and I have lost him twice."

From Les Miserables: "'You know, Monsieur, I think I was a little bit in love with you.'"

From Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet": "'Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here's drink. I drink to thee.'"

What are some of your favorite lines? The ones that cut you right down to the bone?

1 comment:

  1. Oh! Some of these just...wow. I love the "Lady Lazarus" quote! What a great collection of quotes!

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