Forum / What's the best line you ever wrote?

• 
  Adam Sifre

  Feb 21, 07:24pm

  All mine are gems, so I can't post one. But that's just me. What's your favorite line you've ever penned?

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Feb 21, 07:42pm

  Define "a line" in prose, please. Is it a sentence or a phrase or a turn of phrase or line as in joke composed of a set-up and a punch line? Or a one-sentence paragraph? Or line as in a song, such as "You take me wrong and make me right," as I listened to again today, sweetly sung in soprano by Christa Forster in her band in Houston, Shag.

• 
  Ramon Collins

  Feb 21, 10:16pm

  She tried to stand but the earth beneath her knees held her tight.

  From Sgt. Nelson, KIA

• 
  Ramon Collins

  Feb 21, 10:18pm

  She tried to stand but the earth beneath her knees held her tight. -- from Sgt. Nelson, KIA

• 
  Ramon Collins

  Feb 21, 10:23pm

  SORRY: There should be an Edit/Delete button on this page.

• 
  Joani Reese

  Feb 21, 11:36pm

  We linger in the vague, blue hum of another summer.

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Feb 22, 12:03am

  The best relationship I ever had was on I mean with a mannequin.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Feb 22, 02:50am

  "I don't do lines." She said.
  "No? Then what's that on your nose... or, should I ask, where'd you find the powdered donuts?"

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Feb 22, 10:28pm

  Having a relationship with a mannequin means never having to say you're sorry.

  Now I'm sorry I said that. But I couldn't help myself.

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Feb 22, 11:21pm

  Mannequins *are* hot, there's no denying. Esp. in the window of some funky clothing store.

  But THIS, I truly believe, is my best line (though--oddly--never published...):

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Whenever a man pisses he takes in hand his best wishes.

• 
  Ann Bogle

  Feb 24, 03:52am

  "Where were we?" Mr. Benjamin twists in his chair to face Tom. His shoulder juts over the table, a glacial ridge. Jane abandons Connie and vies for a word with the men.

  "Dad, Gary and I read that book, and what we think ... "

  "Who's Gary?"

  "I'm Gary."

  "I'm terribly sorry, Gary."

  Gary looks blank. Herbert looks certain.

  "I met you last month at that cast party. You and Jane came with my grandson."

  "I'm afraid not." Gary looks uneasily at Jane.

  Jane looks miserably at all of them.

  --from "Chinese," my first published story in The Quarterly, 6, summer 1988.

• 
  David Ackley

  Feb 24, 06:44pm

  "Fucking buffalo, the writer's curse."

  Tales from the Golden Age ( A History of Printing and Publication.)

  on Fictionaut

• 
  Adam Sifre

  Feb 25, 05:00am

  "Time as a river and George a piece of worn sandstone."

  or something like that.

• 
  Nonnie Augustine

  Feb 25, 01:54pm

  "We will walk on gravel paths studded with gemstones." My favorite line, anyway. Who knows what my best line is? Not me.

• 
  J.A. Pak

  Feb 26, 08:51pm

  Guys and mannequins! BTW, mannequin fans, have you seen the movie Lars and the Real Girl? Highly recommend.

  On topic, I think the best line I've ever written is "He sort of waved his hand, as if the past was a pesky fly." (from "What I Did For Pho" http://www.ja-pak.com/Pho.html "

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Feb 26, 08:57pm

  Lars and the Real Girl is a WONDERFUL movie.

• 
  Oliver Hunt

  Feb 26, 09:21pm

  Wrigleyville is a drawer full of dull knives.

  -it'll be in the novel.

• 
  Barry Basden

  Feb 26, 11:23pm

  Mannequins, J.A.?

  http://bit.ly/1kabU6g

• 
  J.A. Pak

  Feb 27, 03:21am

  I see a mannequin anthology in the works...

• 
  strannikov

  Feb 27, 06:37pm

  Among the many, at least the latest:

  "Nature" without the red claws and teeth: what will we think of next?

• 
  Jane Flett

  Feb 28, 04:21pm

  My favourite: "Her mind had never felt so gloriously empty: a long, white tundra with no landmarks left to define her."

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Feb 28, 05:20pm

  "Let the choirs return the darkest night, like the singer's throaty memory of saturday's gin on sunday's amen, like a soft ache in the belly of bliss."

  From Cup of Trembling. Shoot, I think I'll post the whole thing.

• 
  Lynn Beighley

  Mar 01, 12:39am

  The guy in the next cube over noticed the stain and missed her.

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Mar 01, 02:00am

  ‘Thozrg ċanzthk harwg thrөk ċagzh undst eatċk utz toөrg," snarzked dyg ghөozhle. “Ozk, yerzhk?” spraċk dyg zilliөg radkishk, wvrigrkhkzliөnk hyx terk arn dyg dzrk whilstzөetg kwravink uk dyg ċrazks.

• 
  Susan Gibb

  Mar 06, 11:43pm

  I think, "The light is soft and tricky with shadows." from an old story called "Reflections."

• 
  Lucinda Kempe

  Mar 07, 02:08am

  "The words broke into birds and fluttered around the room." From I Became a Girl, short story.

• 
  Misti Rainwater-Lites

  Mar 08, 05:28pm

  Once again, Nova was constipated.

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Mar 09, 04:50am

  If a line is a sentence:

  Have you ever experienced the horror of making love to the woman who loves you and then, after separating, standing with your back to her, choosing which of the shirts she has given you to wear to dinner, you realize that the reason you held onto her for so long with your head between her breasts was that you could not bring yourself to look into her eyes because of the wordless truth which flowed through the knowing length of your naked body and which now, as you rub the silver cloth between your fingers, has finally reached your brain which cannot help but form the words of betrayl and you are thinking, ‘Please, not now,’ but it is now, and you turn to see her sitting on the edge of the bed, bent over her stockings, humming to herself, and you call her name and she looks up and smiles, says, ‘Yes, love?’ and you say it with a weird open grimace and she dies then and there, a slow, struggling, blinking death but death just the same, and yet, to hide the murder, you insist on going out, and you drag this unbloody corpse around with you, sit it on a chair and feed it while thinking you might, at any moment, scream into the air, and then finally, FINALLY she leaves and you are left with one more bloody notch, trying to consider yourself lucky, not guilty, the majestic preventer of future unhappiness, when you know you did not choose to fall in love just as you did not choose to fall out of love and you lie there thinking of murders to come, murders to receive, and you feel that the best thing to do is simply lie there forever, unmoving, saying, ‘I prefer my moments of torture to arrive in easily handled, infinitely disposable packets,’ but they cut so deeply, the quick ones, and you do not know how many more you can give because to give is to receive and all you seem able to give is the right quick cut to the undeserving and you roll over, away from yourself, but sleep will not come, will not relieve the hell of awareness, so you stroke your leg, your hand moving up to the Mindless One, the Great Hypnotist! and you think, ‘Ah, women!’

• 
  David Ackley

  Mar 09, 06:28pm

  Or a line is a sentence is a novel.

  Good one, Matt.

• 
  Adam Sifre

  Mar 16, 01:18am

  Good line, Jane Felt.

• 
  whatwouldbukowskido

  Mar 16, 01:35am

  (John Lennon's best line:)

  I resent performing for you shits!
  Tell me, what do you know?
  A lot of fucking middle-class kids
  Wearing long hair and trendy clothes.
  Look, I’m not your fucking parents
  And I’m sick of uptight hippies coming knocking at me door
  With a fucking peace symbol
  Get this, got that I don’t owe you fuckers anything.
  And all I’ve got to say is “fuck you!”

  The sky is blue.

  And Mick Jagger
  I think that Mick’s a joke with all his stupid faggot dancing
  I always did.
  Wiggling his ass, you know, its just a lot of bullshit.
  And where does he come off saying all those tarty things about the Beatles?
  When every fucking thing we ever did Mick tried to copy
  and you know we even wrote his second fuckin record for him
  No, the Stones, aren’t the same in class as the Beatles,
  either music-wise or power-wise; they never ever were.

  Pardon me sir.

  Paul said he hated Yoko
  Tell me, why should Yoko have to take that kind of shit -
  Shit from those fucking sons of bitches?
  George said she gave off evil vibes
  I should have beat the fucking shit right out of him,
  him with his fucking Hari Krishnas.

  Me Auntie she tore up me fucking poems
  She just threw the bastards out.
  I can’t forgive her ‘cause she didn’t treat me like a fucking genius.
  Look, you bastards, I’m a genius!
  Like Shakespeare and Beethoven and Van Gogh.
  Don’t you DARE criticize my work!
  “Don’t Worry Kyoko” is one of the fuckin BEST rock and roll records ever made!
  I’m a fucking artist!
  I’m sensitive as shit!
  I throw up before I go on stage!
  I could make a guitar SPEAK!
  If I could be a fisherman, I would, But I CAN’T because I’m a fucking GENIUS!
  I was the Walrus - Paul wasn’t the Walrus!
  I was just saying that to be nice, but I was actually the Walrus!
  You know that rubbish he’s been singing?
  EASTMAN WAS AN ANIMAL! A Fucking STUPID MIDDLE-CLASS PIG!
  I WON’T LET fucking ANIMALS LIKE THAT NEAR ME!
  Yoko is a supreme intellectual!
  I’ll tell you why nobody likes her music
  because she’s a woman, and she’s Oriental, that’s why!

  Where are you Mother?
  They’re trying to crucify me!

  Genius is pain,
  Genius is pain,
  Genius is pain,
  Genius is PAIN!
  YOKO! MOTHER!

• 
  Adam Sifre

  Mar 16, 02:28pm

  Nobody warns you how hollow a death can make you feel.

  - "I'll be home for Christmas"

• 
  Barry Basden

  Mar 17, 03:09pm

  "Good luck with your future writing endeavors."

• 
  Adam Sifre

  Mar 18, 11:37pm

  Barry, that was you? I see that line everywhere!

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  Mar 19, 12:10am

  Barry's like Santa Claus. He has helpers everywhere.

• 
  Mark Reep

  Mar 19, 01:08am

  This is fun. Especially like Joanie's, Lynn's, Misti's.

  Mine:
  'The night she left she claimed she fucked Bukowski.'

  Though my gf likes 'He was laughing when I shot him.'

• 
  Wesley Baines

  May 01, 06:39pm

  "The tired of whipping him, so they tied him to the mast, and, for two days, let the hail do it".

  -First line from "Sands of Heaven," my current novel project.

• 
  James Lloyd Davis

  May 05, 06:50pm

  Mark, I like that last one. I think I'll steal it. (Just kidding. Maybe.) The Bukowski qualifier, though, speaks volumes. Can't believe Paul Simon didn't use it in Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover. You're one up on Paul.

• 
  Henry Standing Bear

  Jun 04, 12:36pm

  This sentence, the first and only sentence to a story I've been writing for a good long time, is unpublished, but I'm most happy with it than any other I've written, I think:

  "The gypsies moved in like a line of ants across a clean plate."

• 
  Henry Standing Bear

  Jun 04, 02:04pm

  My favorite shared here would have to be:

  "He was laughing when I shot him."

  That a fine one, Reep.

• 
  Adam Sifre

  Jun 22, 02:48pm

  Does anyone have any other great lines I can steal?

• Frankie Saxx

  Jun 22, 03:29pm

  Heh. We should be stealing yours. :P

• 
  Adam Sifre

  Jun 23, 01:21pm

  That is flattering coming from you. Practically every line you write evokes.

• 
  Mathew Paust

  Jun 23, 03:57pm

  Lyndon Johnson's, looking out the doorway of Air Force One in Dallas moments after being sworn in as POTUS (reported by Secret Service agents standing next to him), shouting: "I PISS ON YOU ALL."

  Source: http://tinyurl.com/qfgsdyf

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