Someone should write an erudite essay on the moral, physical, and esthetic effect of the Model T Ford on the American nation. Two generations of Americans knew more about the Ford coil than the clitoris, about the planetary system of gears than the s...
As a result of these news stories, millions of people must have become aware of "niggardly," who otherwise would never have heard it, let alone thought to use it. If this is right, and the word has a new currency, it is probably not the currency I wo...
Brandon Walsh: [Rosalita screaming in spanish] What's she saying Mouth? Translate. Mouth: No pen. No write. No sign! Mikey: No dad don't sign it! [Rosalita runs over to Mrs Walsh and pulls out her hand and empties Mikey's marble bag] Mikey: Dad! Dad!...
Rita Skeeter: What a charismatic quartet! Hello, I'm Rita Skeeter. I write for the daily prophet. But, of course, you know that, don't you? It's you we don't know. You're the juicy news. What quirks lurk beneath those rosy cheeks? What mysteries do t...
Thorin Oakenshield: [after putting in the key and opening the door] Erebor. Balin: [In tears] Thorin. Thorin Oakenshield: I know these walls. These halls. This stone. Do you remember it Balin? Chambers filled with golden light. Balin: I remember. Glo...
[Donovan wants Indy to get the Grail] Walter Donovan: You could go down in history. Indiana Jones: As what? A Nazi stooge like you? Walter Donovan: The Nazis? Is that the limit of your vision? The Nazis want to write themselves into the Grail legend,...
The Bride: Then give me one of these. Hattori Hanzo: They're not for sale. The Bride: I didn't say "sell me", I said "give me". Hattori Hanzo: [laughs] Why should I help you? The Bride: Because my vermin is a former student of yours. And considering ...
Edith: My God, what is this? It looks like a genuine Van Gogh, but I've never seen it before... Dan: Is that an original, John? John Oldman: No, it's just a gift someone gave me. Edith: Still, it's a superb copy. Contemporaneous I think, may I take a...
Mr. Bingley: Your friend, Miss Lucas, is a most amusing young woman. Elizabeth Bennet: Oh, yes, I adore her! Mrs. Bennet: It is a pity she's not more handsome. Elizabeth Bennet: Mama! Mrs. Bennet: Oh, but Lizzie would never admit that she's plain. Of...
Tracy Lord: I can't make you out at all now. Macaulay Connor: I thought I was easy. Tracy Lord: So did I. But you're not. You talk so big and tough and then you write like this. Which is which? Macaulay Connor: Both. I guess. Tracy Lord: No. No, I be...
Kay Eiffel: What's this? Penny Escher: It's literature on the nicotine patch. Kay Eiffel: I don't need a nicotine patch, Penny. I smoke cigarettes. Penny Escher: Well, it may help. Kay Eiffel: May help? Help what? Help what, Penny? Help write a novel...
Red: [narrating] The following April Andy did tax returns for half the guards at Shawshank. Year after that he did them all including the warden's. Year after that they rescheduled the start of the intra-mural season to coincide with tax season. The ...
Lester Bangs: You CANNOT make friends with the rock stars. That's what's important. If you're a rock journalist - first, you will never get paid much. But you will get free records from the record company. And they'll buy you drinks, you'll meet girl...
Young Doc: [while exploring the cave that holds the DeLorean in it] This reminds me of the time I attempted to reach the center of the earth. I'd be reading my favorite author, Jules Verne. I spent weeks preparing that expedition, I didn't even get t...
One of the seats of emotion and memory in the brain is the amygdala, he explained. When something threatens your life, this area seems to kick into overdrive, recording every last detail of the experience. The more detailed the memory, the longer the...
The brain, he writes, is like Kublai Khan, the great Mongol emperor of the thirteenth century. It sits enthroned in its skull, "encased in darkness and silence," at a lofty remove from brute reality. Messengers stream in from every corner of the sens...
Why do I write? Because, I am able to create wonders with a click of my keyboard. I turn my computer on, and suddenly, I’m whisked into a world full of wonder and amazement. The universe bends to my will and defies physics. But when the afternoon a...
I write a lot of songs about love and I think that’s because to me love seems like this huge complicated thing. But it seems like every once in a while, two people get it figured out, two people get it right. And so I think the rest of us, we walk ...
I think no more than a week after I started writing I ran into the first block. It's hard to describe it in a way that will be understandable to anyone who is not a neurotic. I will try. All my life I have been haunted by the obsession that to desire...
It could be a thousand things, distractions, worries; but very often I think what keeps a writer from finding the words is that she grasps at them too soon, hurries, grabs. She doesn’t wait for the wave to come in and break. She wants to write beca...
Write it down. Not just to remember it, but to forget it in the right way. My notebook are a kind of materialized subconscious, a hard-copy memory and its invisible substrata, following their own rules. More than once I have been surprised to discove...
