Post brief quotes from fiction/narrative/whatever

[Elendil's Heir]

Gib: "The guy is a goddamn used car salesman! I mean, this just keeps getting better and better!"
[Harry gives him a dirty look]
Gib: "I'm sorry, Harry, I know this has got to be painful. But you gotta admit, it's pretty damn funny. I mean, if it was just some idiot and not you, you'd be laughing your ass off."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"I'm sorry, but I'll just bet you're hitting the ball too hard.

[...]

"Big-league baseball players use bats that weigh between 36 and 40 ounces, to try and drive a 5-ounce ball into the next county. Your cue weighs about half what a bat does, the balls weigh just about what a baseball does, and you only have to roll them — on felt — a few feet, frequently a few inches."

— George Fels, Mastering Pool (from the original 1977 edition, with the good photographs....gonna have to put some tape on the spine, starting to fall apart a bit).

[Elendil's Heir]

Harry (talking through microphones and speakers): "The codename of your assignment will be... Boris. And your codename will be...."
Helen Tasker (hopeful): "Natasha?"
Harry: "No... Doris."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"[Y]ou'll find that stacked balls react much better to being stroked smoothly to being stroked hard. That's because a smoothly stroked cue ball transmits more of its force to more of the balls, whereas whereas a cannonball passes its force primarily to the first ball it touches and the last ball in the row."

— Fels, Mastering Pool, 1977 edition with the good photographs.

[Elendil's Heir]

Simon: "Okay, just ask yourself: What do women really want? You take these bored housewives, married to the same guy for years, they're stuck in a rut, then need some release! Promise of adventure, a hint of danger. I create that for them."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"Thou shalt not approach to a woman having her flowers, neither shalt thou uncover her nakedness." — Leviticus, 18:9. (Douay-Rheims transl......I won't cite the Vulgate source, but it's more revealing in the Clementine Vulgate text). Of course, I disagree, but seemed an apt quote.

[Elendil's Heir]

Gib (as Harry is commandeering a U.S. Marine Corps Harrier jet to rescue his daughter): "Harry, do you realize it has, in fact, been ten years since you've been behind the wheel of one of these things?"
Harry: "If I break it, they can take it outta my pay."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

The ruler saith to him: Go thy way; thy son liveth. The man the word which Iesus said to him, and went his way."

— A Catholic Parallel New Testament Polyglot, Engl tr. Douay-Rheims.

[Elendil's Heir]

Gib: "You know what? I say we concentrate on work, buddy. That's what I do every time my life turns to dogshit. I concentrate on work, and that gets me by. All right, buddy? This is gonna be great. You know what? We're gonna catch some terrorists, we're gonna beat the crap out of them, you're gonna feel a helluva lot better."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"Mark Antony reconvened the senate on 17 March and the Senate adopted a resolution that granted amnesty to Caesar's assassins but at the same time ratified all that Caesar had granted, including the bounties that had been granted, or promised, to his veterans."

— John Ramsey, Introductory material written for the 2003 Cambridge Green and Gold prefatory material to Cicero, Philippics I and II. Remarkably prescient.

[Elendil's Heir]

Faisil (as the van slips on ice) "Hey, watch it."
Gib (driving): "It's called ice, and it gets a little slick."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"Sarah spoke to him from the chair in the living room. 'I've heard that pool can be a dirty game,' she said."

— Tevis, The Hustler

[Elendil's Heir]

Gib: "Kids - ten seconds of joy, thirty years of misery."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"'When shall I teach the fair Margot the learned tongue?' Udal asked again."

— Ford, The Fifth Queen

[Elendil's Heir]

Harry (slamming Gib up against a car): "Stop cheering me up!"

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"The old man said vigorously, 'God saVe her highness, and send us her for Queen Have you begged her to get me redress in the matter of that wall?'"

— Ford *The Fifth Queen*

[Elendil's Heir]

Simon (trying, clumsily, to seduce a married woman): "If not for me, Helen, do it for your country!"

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"She said submissively:

'Your lordship would have me become a spy upon the ladies who shall be my fellows?'"

— Ford, The Fifth Queen (trilogy, book I)

[Elendil's Heir]

Harry (stunned): "Helen... Helen... is having an affair!"
Gib (hugs him): "Welcome to the club, man!"

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"Her voice was soft. 'That's right,' she said. She remained seated on the couch, upright, holding her drink in both hands protectively, as if holding a child or a child's doll. Her elbows were on her knees, her lips tightly together, and she was no longer looking at him."

— Tevis, The Hustler

[Elendil's Heir]

Faisil (providing some context on how a spy mission went badly): "It's a scale, really, with a perfect mission at one end and a total pooch-screw at the other, and we're right about in the middle."

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

"Bert seemed to take forever. Finally he came into the room, his face red. He poured himself a small drink, looked at Eddie, pursed his lips thoughtfully, and then went into the bathroom where he began washing his hands and face."

— Tevis, The Hustler

[Elendil's Heir]

Harry (speaking to his borrowed police horse): "What the hell were you thinking? I had the guy, and you let him get away. Look at me when I talk to you. What kind of a cop are you, anyway?"

True Lies

[Jizzelbin]

" — I dunno, but it's weird and it's pissed off!
— Mac wants the flamethrower.
Burn it!
Dammit Childs, torch it!"

*— I don't think this one needs attribution among you all nerds!

[Elendil's Heir]

Hmm. I actually don't recognize that quotation.

John Murdoch: "Daylight. When was the last time you remember seeing it? And I'm not talking about some distant, half-forgotten childhood memory, I mean like yesterday. Last week. Can you come up with a single memory? You can't, can you? You know something, I don't think the sun even... exists... in this place. 'Cause I've been up for hours, and hours, and hours, and the night never ends here."

Dark City

[Jizzelbin]

"I know you gentlemen have been through a lot, but when you find the time, I'd rather not spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!"

— movie

[Elendil's Heir]

Dr. Schreber: "I call them the Strangers. They abducted us and brought us here. This city, everyone in it... is their experiment. They mix and match our memories as they see fit, trying to divine what makes us unique. One day, a man might be an inspector. The next, someone entirely different. When they want to study a murderer, for instance, they simply imprint one of their citizens with a new personality. Arrange a family for him, friends, an entire history... even a lost wallet. Then they observe the results. Will a man, given the history of a killer, continue in that vein? Or are we, in fact, more than the sum of our memories?"

Dark City

[Jizzelbin]

"You wanna get domed? OK. You and Gypsy Rose Lee."

— The Color of Money (movie, not book).

[Elendil's Heir]

Insp. Frank Bumstead: "So, Husselbeck, what kind of killer do you think stops to save a dying fish?"

Dark City

[Jizzelbin]

"You know that I never wait until after I've looked at the rushes to begin the editing. I cut them as I'm looking at them. But I suffered agonies spending twelve hours a a day on the old machines."

— Orson Welles in conversation with Henry Jaglom in My Lunches with Orson. The so-called editor of this marvelous treasury is a piece of trash who has not ever had one redeemable thought, even in theory, therefore I took the liberty of using a Sharpie to blot out that stain from the front cover of this otherwise charming set of vignettes, if at times cobbled together in a haphazard way by some egomaniacal mere "writer."



(Sorry about the size of the image: I don't feel like negotiating with Don Fanucci or his kind on this small a matter).