Post The Last Line Of Your Favorite Prose

Lovely. Must have been written by a social worker

Well....technically you're right. But I maintain he never would have survived in the US. He would have offed himself much sooner.

You're probably right.

"Whats not to like about the English. They have a deep interest in bloodthirsty massacre coupled with perfect manners..."

I have no idea of the work so maybe someone can assure me that its not just a Benny Hill Sketch or some line from "MidSomer Murders" .

Not the last line I'm afraid but as good a grounding as I've ever heard.


“Huxley: "Tell me something Bryce, do you know the difference between a Jersey, a Guernsey, a Holstein, and an Ayershire?"
Bryce: "No."
Huxley: "Seabags Brown does."
Bryce: "I don't see what that has to do..."
Huxley: "What do you know about Gaelic history?"
Bryce: "Not much."
Huxley: "Then why don't you sit down one day with Gunner McQuade. He is an expert. Speaks the language, too."
Bryce: "I don't..."
Huxley: " What do you know about astronomy?"
Bryce: "A little."
Huxley: "Discuss it with Wellman, he held a fellowship."
Bryce: "This is most puzzling."
Huxley: "What about Homer, ever read Homer?"
Bryce: "Of course I've read Homer."
Huxley: "In the original Greek?"
Bryce: "No"
Huxley: "Then chat with Pfc. Hodgkiss. Loves to read the ancient Greek."
Bryce: "Would you kindly get to the point?"
Huxley: "The point is this, Bryce. What makes you think you are so goddam superior? Who gave you the bright idea that you had a corner on the world's knowledge? There are privates in this battalion who can piss more brains down a slit trench then you'll ever have. You're the most pretentious, egotistical individual I've ever encountered. Your superiority complex reeks. I've seen the way you treat men, like a big strutting peacock. Why, you've had them do everything but wipe your ass.”

Sounds like one of Elmore Leonards " 10 Rules of writing"

May he R.I.P, there wouldn't be much written were we to stick to Elmore's rules.

yeh but its all dialogue and that's how he painted his scenes."If it sounds too much like writing, you better rewrite it"

''Ye mean the realer the better.''

That's Dublinese

"In the original New York Times article that includes the rules, Leonard himself adds caveats and qualifications to five of the 10—something you’ll miss if you just read the listicle versions proliferating on the Web.

He even opens up the piece with a big hedge: “If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules.”

Now, saying you can skip the rules if “the sound of your voices pleases you” may sound like a jab at self-satisfied writers, and perhaps that’s how Leonard meant it.

But the truth is that “invisibility” is not what all writers are after—and not, for that matter, what all writers should be after. And so I prefer to think that Leonard intended that bit about skipping the rules with at least some sincerity."

RIP
the numerous short stories and novels that he wrote with a clean clarity that rivaled Ernest Hemingway, whose style inspired him, Leonard said, except that “he didn’t have a sense of humor.”

Karen Flores: I think you could be an actor.

Chili Palmer: Well, I could see myself in the parts that Robert De Niro plays. Or maybe even, an Al Pacino movie, you know, playing a real hard-on. But I couldn't see myself in those movies where three grown-up guys get left with a baby, and so they act like three grown-up assholes, acting all cute...

Karen Flores: Chili, Chili, look at me.

Hes actually taught inMFA programs over at Princeton. "Liking the sound of your voice" was an off-hand chop he made at the Victorian"Fine writing" where Bulwar Lyton was considered the type section.

You've still not answered the question, was the last line from The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, or was it another one of his works?

I believe I answered it answered it above when Panzade asked. Yes it was .
viz;

Sorry, I missed it. I'm feeling a lot of shame right now.

make a prfect act of contrition and say a buncha Hail Marys

How about this?

I take you as the personification of evil, as destroyer of the soul, as the Maharanee of the night. Tack your womb up on my wall, so that I may remember you. We must get going. Tomorrow, tomorrow......

Best highbrow wank book of my teenage years.

A lot better than DH Lawrence.

The bit in Lady Chat about anal intercourse, it took me about 20 years (i.e. from age 11 to 30ish) to realize what it was actually about, I had thought it was just a bit of flowery writing. Lawrence was a really bad writer IMHO.