“My name is Inigo Montoya, you kill my father, prepare to die.”
It’s my birthday, and while I am not a movie watching person as a normal thing, there are certain exceptions. The Princess Bride is one of those. I’ve been spending quality time with my new grand-daughter making sure I get in young with the unforgettable lines. I’m not sure that at five months she’ll remember Wesley or Buttercup all that well, so we may have to repeat this. (chorus: “as you wish”).
Seriously, as writer, it’s lovely if people remember your book – but it’s a big ask. What people tend to remember in detail is a line, or a scene. (Princess Bride has more than its fair share of those.) Those scenes/lines tend to be ‘keys’ to remembering the book. “Talking to you, Sir, is like talking to an eel.” Do you find them more responsive than gateposts?” Takes straight to the book – and usually back to reading something by the same author — which as a writer is exactly what you want.
So: what makes these great lines? I wish I knew exactly. They seem to usually be dialogue, at least for me. But I suspect it is often 1)Treppenwitz (a rejoinder so clever we wish we’d thought of it at the time) 2) Sheer incongruity. Like humor, which often springs a reaction by being not quite what we expected, it stands out for this reason.
What do you think makes those unforgettable lines? What are some of yours?
Mad Genius Club 
26 responses to “Unforgettable lines”
I’ve heard Inigo’s lines used as an example of a good introduction, because it gives his name, states a personal connection, and manages expectation.
It’s the exact content that makes it funny.
“No… *I* am your father.”
Even though I sort of knew it was coming (a friend spoiled it for me but I didn’t believe him) it still blew my 9-year-old mind.
I’ve always thought the French term for “witticism opportunity missed” was absolutely perfect: “L’esprit d’escalier” — “the wit of the staircase”, i.e., topper lines you wish you’d thought of, when it’s too late.
We’re writers, not public comedians. It’s never too late for us (pre-publication). 🙂
Happy Birthday! It also MY birthday, so what a fantastic day for a birthday!
Happy Birthday to you too 🙂
Dave, you are a fiend! I am beating my brains put trying to place the eel/gatepost line.
Haven’t given up yet, but I may be institutionalized…
It’s from one of Georgette Heyer’s books. Venetia, maybe?
Clever enough you wish you had said it, emotional investment, and fitting the story.
It can fit it by being incongruous to the scene, but matching the *story*– prepare to die!
“What, you expecting a snappy one liner?”
“Reeeee!”
“Uh oh.”
Heh! Tracked down your eel quote. Won’t put in a spoiler for those still playing the game.
The author is obvious (I think) but the actual book is still eluding me… Grrr. ; )
Want a hint? (Evil grin)
Tixy on your nintype, biddle lum.
?
It’s a spoonerisms from my mom. Nix you on your tintype, little bum. It means no don’t tell me. My current gu so is Miles Calverly but I haven’t been able to check.
Ebooks made it easy to check. If I had to go through my library and skim each book…😱
I don’t know if anyone else will think it’s unforgettable, but one of my favorite lines that I came up with for ‘The Lone Star, the Tricolor, and the Swastika’ was when President Roosevelt asked his advisors where the U.S. should stand in regards to the brewing Franco – Texan war.
Secretary of State Hull replied “As far away as possible, with a beer and a bowl of popcorn?”
Well, I liked this: “Look at this, Lyndon. Here is your future. If you survive today, your political career is made.” 😀
“Major Strasser has been shot. Round up the usual suspects!” Because it sums up the character and the story so well.
And in part because a certain department chair named my grad-student cohort “The Usual Suspects” for a number of reasons, a few of which we might, perhaps, have deserved.
… this ten cent Clark Gable who thinks he’s so slick he can slide uphill … One of my favorite lines, oddly not one of my favorite of the author’s books.
“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.” – Jane Austen.
“Count Fosco, it may be remembered (I hope) by some, was a calm, corpulent, colossal gentleman, whose head was exactly like a bust of Napoleon of heroic size. He may have been a melodramatic villain; but he was a tolerably convincing Italian-of that kind. If we recall his tranquil manner, and the excellent common sense of his everyday external words and actions, we shall probably have a merely material image of the type of Thomas Aquinas; given only the slight effort of faith required to imagine Count Fosco turned suddenly into a saint.” -GK Chesterton.
Martin, reddening, said: “I see what you are at! I’m not to be blamed if my father preferred me to you!”
“No, you are to be felicitated,” said Gervase.”
-Georgette Heyer, the Quiet Gentleman
“Gentlemen, gentlemen! You can’t fight in here — this is the War Room!”
I’m looking for a place to use this one:
“I’d rather teach calculus to a cow. At least the cow wouldn’t waste my time with stupid-ass questions.”
I think that those memorable lines are kind of like dark horse characters. If you intentionally try to create one, you’re destined to be mocked. It’s only when you’re writing without trying that they sometimes spring out of the ether and land on the page.
Babylon Five is filled with this stuff. So are the early Marvel movies. “Son, you’ve got a condition.”
One of the things I miss. Killer one liners.
My attempt taken from current WIP:
“This is hilarious,” chuckled George. “You had no problems talking to the wacky alien all morning but lose your shit with Jimmy.”
“He’s weirder,” snorted Ah-Rahm. “Social skills of a turnip.”
“Turnip know to be quiet,” observed Feng Li sourly.
Somehow it’s easier when characters come up with this stuff. Like someone else thought of it. I just write it down. ~:D
” . . . and your little dog, too!”
My own? Er, maybe “and there were no goats!”