***** Favorite Moments *****
The ones you still get a kick out of ten years later.
"The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together toward perfect felicity."
Jane Austen
(commenting on a phenomenon well-known to readers and to watchers of television shows, in Northanger Abbey)
"You can't run an outfit like mine without team spirit."
Chris Boucher
From a lecture by Bayban the Butcher, pirate terror of the spaceways, "City at the Edge of the World," Blake's 7
"You don't know who I am."
"Absolutely not, no idea, you needn't worry about it, I won't ask any questions."
"Small-time thief and failed revolutionary, and you don't know who I am."
"Well, if you put it like that, of course I know who you are. You're, you're..."
"Bayban."
"Bayban, yes."
"Bayban the Berserker? Bayban the Butcher?"
"Bayban the Butcher! You're Bayban the Butcher! Oh, no."
"That's better."
"You're at the top of the Federation's Most Wanted List! --After Blake."
"What do you mean, after Blake? I was working my way up that list before he crept out of his creche. Working my way up. I didn't take any political shortcuts."
Chris Boucher "City at the Edge of the World," Blake's 7
"My mother -- oh, yes, I had a mother. Wonderful woman. Truly evil person. She had a saying. 'Babe,' she used to say -- she called me 'Babe' -- 'Babe,' she used to say, 'treat every hour as if it were your last.' ...I'll be back in an hour, Vila."
Chris Boucher"City at the Edge of the World," Blake's 7
"I know it was you."
"Pardon?"
"Pardon? Not in this organization."
David Burke
Sonny Steelgrave to Sid Royce, "New Blood," Wiseguy
"What truck?"
Lawrence Kasdan
Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark
"There are a lot of ways to die, but I can't think of anything more embarrassing than autoerotic asphyxiation."
"Why are you telling this to me?"
"All right, forget I mentioned it."
Darin Morgan
Clyde Bruckman to Fox Mulder, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," X-Files
"But somehow, Vir, you have managed to walk through the corridors of power and not be touched, from which I can only conclude that you have not been paying attention."
J.Michael Straczynski
Londo to Vir, Babylon 5
"I put six bullets in a guy, and you're telling me I didn't kill him?"
"It wasn't meant as a criticism."
Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco
Jimmy Murtha to Mickey, Episode Six, EZ Streets
"Sir, of course I'm frigid, I'm an Englishwoman."
Agatha Christie, trying to discourage an amorous suitor, from her Autobiography
(This one's from memory -- I'm damned if I can find the correct page for this anecdote in Christie's charming memoirs.)
Miss Millborne had told him once that violets were her favorite flowers. The fact that she had chosen to present him with this information at a moment when he had laid an enormous bouquet of roses at her feet was a little daunting, but he had treasured up the knowledge against a future occasion, and he now perceived how to put it to excellent account...
She could not but be touched by Wrotham's having taken such pains to obtain for her flowers which he believed to be her favorites. She recalled, with a twinge of her conscience, having bestowed this mendacious piece of information on him, and her more compassionate feelings prompted her to carry his offering to the ball, instead of the yellow roses left earlier in the day with his Grace of Severn's compliments. But several circumstances mitigated against this impulse. In the first place, Wrotham had been inspired at the eleventh hour to send the flowers with the second of his messages in place of the first. Wear these, and I shall know what to think, ran the inscription on his lordship's card. This was going too fast for Miss Millborne, who felt that until she herself knew what to think it would be better for his lordship to remain in his present uninformed state.
Georgette Heyer, Friday's ChildThough I could not feel unqualified admiration for rulers to whom murder came more easily than breaches of good manners, I took full delight in the sunset glow of the splendour they had created.
John Blofeld, City of Lingering Splendour
"Mickey?"
"Yeah."
"Find anything?"
"Nope."
"Not one bug in the entire place."
"Nope."
"Did you read the manual?"
"I didn't steal the manual."
"Well, then, how do you know if you're doing it right?"
"I called 'em up and asked."
"You stole, and then you called 'em up and asked 'em how to use it."
"Jimmy, it's Radioshack. They ain't gonna lie."
Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco
Jimmy Murtha and Mickey, Episode Six, EZ Streets
Love is space and time made directly perceptible to the heart.
Marcel Proust
Okay, there's a lot of television here, because that's just the sort of media maven I am. I'll add and change as the days go by.
Want to add any favorite bits of your own? Books, movies, plays... Write me, and I'll include them in a second section here.
