Memorable things characters said

From Casablanca:
"I remember every detail. You wore blue. The Germans wore gray."

Don't know why I like that line so much, but I do.

In a film about the the military dictatorship in Burma/Myanmar an old Burmese character said the following to a young American doctor about the joys of life that have never left my heart.

At age fifteen, I told an acquaintance that I wished to be a writer. In that conversation, I described somebody as "swave," intending the word "suave." The man was kind enough to withhold his laughter.

Coulda been worse.
Coulda been deboner.

Loved Katharine Hepburn! One of my favorite movies is On Golden Pond. This line really got me:

""Listen to me, mister. You're my knight in shining armor. Don't you forget it. You're going to get back on that horse, and I'm going to be right behind you, holding on tight, and away we're gonna go, go, go!"

I am an adult like that, once in a while.

That's the thing. You don't know why, but the line stays with you.

This one from The Thorn Birds - my guilty pressure during the late teens - by Colleen McCullough mesmerized me quite a bit. It didn't have the same effect as Rhett Butler's words, but still....

There is a legend about a bird which sings just once in its life, more sweetly than any other creature on the face of the earth. From the moment it leaves the nest it searches for a thorn tree, and does not rest until it has found one. Then, singing among the savage branches, it impales itself upon the longest, sharpest spine. And, dying, it rises above its own agony to out-carol the lark and the nightingale. One superlative song, existence the price. But the whole world stills to listen, and God in His heaven smiles. For the best is only bought at the price of great pain... or so says the legend...

Don't remember who said the lines though. The same paragraph was used as a sort of prologue to the novel.

Ah, The Thorn Birds. I like that one, too.

You just reminded me of Out of Africa. Have you seen that?

"If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? Will the air over the plain quiver with a color that I have had on, or the children invent a game in which my name is, or the full moon throw a shadow over the gravel of the drive that was like me, or will the eagles of the Ngong Hills look out for me?"

And, a shorter favorite:

"Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road. "

Who ever wrote that line has never been to Saskatchewan... lol

I absolutely loved this wee speech from Bull Durham.
Annie Savoy: I believe in the Church of Baseball. I've tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I've worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. But it just didn't work out between us. The Lord laid too much guilt on me. I prefer metaphysics to theology. You see, there's no guilt in baseball, and it's never boring... which makes it like sex. There's never been a ballplayer slept with me who didn't have the best year of his career. Making love is like hitting a baseball: you just gotta relax and concentrate. Besides, I'd never sleep with a player hitting under .250... not unless he had a lot of RBIs and was a great glove man up the middle. You see, there's a certain amount of life wisdom I give these boys. I can expand their minds. Sometimes when I've got a ballplayer alone, I'll just read Emily Dickinson or Walt Whitman to him, and the guys are so sweet, they always stay and listen. 'Course, a guy'll listen to anything if he thinks it's foreplay. I make them feel confident, and they make me feel safe, and pretty. 'Course, what I give them lasts a lifetime; what they give me lasts 142 games. Sometimes it seems like a bad trade. But bad trades are part of baseball - now who can forget Frank Robinson for Milt Pappas, for God's sake? It's a long season and you gotta trust. I've tried 'em all, I really have, and the only church that truly feeds the soul, day in, day out, is the Church of Baseball.

"Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road." Isak Dinesen was the pen-name of female author Karen Blixen.

Thank-you, it's beautifully written, although in Saskatchewan, it's so flat, you can see your dog run away for three days... lol

Her delivery makes it what it is, I think.

From "The Big Easy" -- One of the sexiest lines ever. Dennis Quaid's character says to Ellen Barkin's character....

Her: That's OK. I never did have much luck with sex anyway.
Him: Your luck's about to change, cher.

I remember that line, Eva. And the movie. He was telling the truth. Stranger things have been known to happen.

From Somebody Up There Likes Me. Rocky has a past of doing bad things. He's gonna fight for the championship, and all the bad stuff is being reported in the papers. He goes back to his old neighborhood. Finds the corner candystore open. Goes in and orders a soda. Talks to the guy behind the counter, kvetching about what's happening in the press. The counter guy says, "You gotta pay for the soda." Homespun wisdom. You do stuff, you gotta be willing to accept the consequences--pay for the soda.

"You don't know me. You just THINK you do."
Delroy Lindo in Get Shorty.

I can tell you I love you as many times as you can stand to hear it, but all it does is remind us that love is not enough.

My Life as a House.
George to his former wife, Robin.

Jesus Wept.

Lost in time like tears in the rain.

My all time favorite is by Frederick Douglass:

The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating, all-absorbing, and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do this or it does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters.

This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. In the light of these ideas, Negroes will be hunted at the North and held and flogged at the South so long as they submit to those devilish outrages and make no resistance, either moral or physical. Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get. If we ever get free from the oppressions and wrongs heaped upon us, we must pay for their removal. We must do this by labor, by suffering, by sacrifice, and if needs be, by our lives and the lives of others.

Enjoy