Most badass lines/paragraphs/chapters you've read in a book
What are some of the most badass lines, paragraphs or chapter you've read in a book. The kind that for whatever reason strike you emotionally, psychologically, spiritually or all three.
For me these include:
Once A Runner, Chapter 17: Breaking Down
http://www.chesnes.com/docs/OaR17.pdf
Highlighted Line: "Running to him was real, the way he did it the realest thing he knew. It was all joy and woe, hard as a diamond; it made him weary beyond all comprehension. But it also made him free."
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"We are speaking of human endeavor and delusional systems. Everyone likes to think they have their own little corner, it can be anything; needlepoint, lawn bowling, whatever. Some guy may gratify himself by thinking he's the best goddamned fruit and vegetable manager the A&P ever had. Which is fine. It gives people a sense of worth in a crowded world where everyone feels like part of the scenery. But then mostly they are spared any harrowing glimpses into their own mediocrity. Pillsbury Bake-Off notwithstanding, we'll never really know who makes the best artichoke souffle in the world will we? Thing is that in track we are painfully and constantly aware of how we stack up, not just with our contemporaries but historically as well. In that regard it's different even from other sports. A basketball player can go out and have a great day and tell himself he's the greatest rebounding forward to ever hit the hardwood, but he'll never really be troubled by the actual truth, will he? In track you see it's all there in black and white. Lots of people can't take that kind of pressure; the ego withers in the face of evidence."
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"It's the lean wolf that leads the pack."
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"Anything else that came out of that process was by-product. Certain compliments and observations made him uneasy; he explained that he was a runner; an athlete, really with an absurdly difficult task. He was not a health nut, was not out to mold himself a stylishly slim body. He did not live on nuts and berries; if the furnace was hot enough, anything would burn, even Big Macs."
The Catcher in the Rye
"I'd bet a thousand bucks that Jesus never sent old Judas to Hell. I still would, too, if I had a thousand bucks. I think any one of the Disciples would've sent him to Hell and all — and fast, too — but I'll bet anything Jesus didn't do it."
Choke
"Art never comes from happiness."
"Because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. Because it's only intangibles, ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. Stone crumbles. Wood rots. People, well, they die."
Maybe if I just drink half, I'll be half buzzed for half of the time
Who's the mastermind behind that little line?
With that kind of rationale man I got half a mind
To have another half a glass of wine
^oh man, funny you should say that. I actually read the last page today in class while we were (supposed to) discussing other chapters.
"Now small fowls flew yet screaming over the yet yawning gulf; the sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago."
I was actually like "damn, why couldn't the whole book be like this?"
Maybe if I just drink half, I'll be half buzzed for half of the time
Who's the mastermind behind that little line?
With that kind of rationale man I got half a mind
To have another half a glass of wine
The final line in the epilogue was the one I meant.
"It was with the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan."
and what are you talking about? That entire book is like that.
Evidence: http://chuckpalahniuk.net/forum/1000026/post-here-and-i-will-give-you-qu...
A couple from my favorite novel "All Quiet on the Western Front"
*A man cannot realize that above such shattered bodies there are still human faces in which life goes it's daily round. And this is only one hospital, a single station; there are hundreds of thousands in Germany, hundreds of thousands in France, hundreds of thousands in Russia. How senseless is everything that can ever be written, done, or thought, when such things are possible. It must be all lies and of no account when the culture of a thousand years could not prevent this stream of blood being poured out, these torture chambers in their hundreds of thousands. A hospital alone shows what war is.*
The last two paragraphs:
*He fell in October 1918, on a day that was so quiet and still on the whole front, that the army report confined itself to a single sentence: All quiet on the Western Front.
He had fallen forward and lay on the earth as though sleeping. Turning him over one saw that he could not have suffered long; his face had an expression of calm, as though almost glad the end had come.*
"Phil cried when he found out his first one night stand was a trannie named Morey" One of Ironman Novels
Nathaniel: Not to me it wasn't, all the filler information about whales (how their pronounced in other languages, the types etc.) and such was pretty boring and really just brought the story down. Some chapters also were just retarded in my humble opposing opinion.
Maybe if I just drink half, I'll be half buzzed for half of the time
Who's the mastermind behind that little line?
With that kind of rationale man I got half a mind
To have another half a glass of wine
Ironman and Match Fit: Nice quotes from All Quiet and that trannie one is pretty b.a.
Maybe if I just drink half, I'll be half buzzed for half of the time
Who's the mastermind behind that little line?
With that kind of rationale man I got half a mind
To have another half a glass of wine
"Man was born to turn the world into a paradise, but tragically he was born flawed. And so his paradise has always been spoiled by stupidity, greed, destructiveness, and shortsightedness."
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn
Good book
Curiosity cures Ignorance.
You Philistine!
I've always dug this opening line from the Raymond Carver story Gazebo:
"That morning she pours Teachers over my belly and licks it off. That afternoon she tries to jump out the window."
Good authors who once knew more clever words,
Now only use four letter words,
Writing prose.
Anything Goes.
-Cole Porter
I dont have a way to post it, but the last page/paragraph of lunar park is probably the best ending of any book Ive read
1234567890
You Philistine!
I still can barely understand how the whole world doesn't love Moby Dick as much as i do.
Its a good book, but a lot of parts I viewed as just shit he added to make it as long as possible. Whiteness of the Whale is an amazing chapter but after a certain point he was beating a dead horse, reiterating the abomination of the whale's whiteness when he already made his point 2-3 paragraphs ago.
Maybe if I just drink half, I'll be half buzzed for half of the time
Who's the mastermind behind that little line?
With that kind of rationale man I got half a mind
To have another half a glass of wine
"One can't love man without hating most of the creatures who pretend to bear his name."
I always liked this one. Howard Roark from Fountainhead
I contend that we are both Atheists. I just dismiss one more god than you. Once you understand why you dismiss all other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
I still can barely understand how the whole world doesn't love Dick as much as i do.
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"Slowly, very slowly, like two unhurried compass needles, the feet turned towards the right; north, north-east, east, south-east, south, south-south-west; then paused, and, after a few seconds, turned as unhurriedly back towards the left. South-south-west, south, south-east, east."
-Brave New World (the end)
I still can barely understand how the whole world doesn't love Dick as much as i do.
HAHAHAHA
Look i can do funny things by editing quotes too.
An obvious one but...
"We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."
Oh yeah, the entirety of Chapter 10 of Dermaphoria.
The last few lines of The Stranger by Albert Camus: (Spoilers, I suppose)
"As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself — so like a brother, really — I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again. For everything to be consummated, for me to feel less alone, I had only to wish that there be a large crowd of spectators the day of my execution and that they greet me with cries of hate."
Also, the last paragraph of Dirty Work, by Larry Brown: (Spoilers, again)
"I stood over him for a long moment. He opened his eyes and looked at me when I closed my hands around his throat. He said Jesus loves you. I shut my eyes because I knew better than that shit. I knew that somewhere Jesus wept."
^ oooh man, that last one was damn nice.
Maybe if I just drink half, I'll be half buzzed for half of the time
Who's the mastermind behind that little line?
With that kind of rationale man I got half a mind
To have another half a glass of wine
On parents: "we realized that the version of the world they painted for us was not the world they truly believed in, and that for all their caretaking and bitching about crabgrass they didn't give a damn about lawns." ~The Virgin Suicides. It might not be word-for-word, I'm doing this from memory.
Then there's "The thing that is most hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most wind up in parentheses." from Cider House Rules by John Irving.
nice, nate. i had thought you'd never read it. i actually have those [almost] two pages dogeared in my softcover edition
..
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That first line of Moby-Dick always gets all the press and glory and whatnot but I thought the very last line in the novel was far more haunting.