Sporting Goods Clerk: Tent poles? Llewelyn Moss: Mmm-hmm. Sporting Goods Clerk: You already have a tent? Llewelyn Moss: Well, somethin' like that. Sporting Goods Clerk: Well, you give me the model number on the tent, I can order you the poles. Llewel...
Charles Van Doren: Last week alone, I had 11 proposals of marriage! Mark Van Doren: Perhaps you should accept one of them. Dorothy Van Doren: [to Mark] And to think, they unleash you on those impressionable young minds. Mark Van Doren: Well, why not?...
Bryan: I'm not comfortable with this. Kim: Dad. Bryan: I know the world, sweetie. Kim: Dad, please... Bryan: I don't think a seventeen-year-old should be traveling alone. Kim: I'm not gonna be alone. Bryan: Two seventeen-year-olds. Kim: Amanda's nine...
Douglas Quaid: [an old woman/luggage thief grabs the briefcase left on sidewalk for Quaid] Sorry, Ma'am, but this is mine. Woman in Phone Booth: [struggling with him] I don't see your name on it! Douglas Quaid: Someone lent it to me. [continues to st...
Mortimer Brewster: The name Brewster is code for Roosevelt. Teddy Brewster: Code for Roosevelt? Mortimer Brewster: Yes. Don't you see? Take the name Brewster, take away the B, and what have you got? Teddy Brewster: Rooster! Mortimer Brewster: Uh-huh....
Reverend Harper: Have you ever tried to persuade him that he wasn't Teddy Roosevelt? Abby Brewster: Oh, no. Martha Brewster: Oh, he's so happy being Teddy Roosevelt. Abby Brewster: Oh... Do you remember, Martha, once, a long time ago, we thought if h...
Cogsworth: [shakes Lumiere's hand in truce] Well, Lumiere, old friend. Shall we let bygones be bygones? Lumiere: Of course, mon ami. I told you she would break the spell! Cogsworth: I beg your pardon, old friend, but I believe *I* told *you*. Lumiere...
Senior Ed Bloom: People needn't worry so much. It's not my time yet. This is not how I go. Will Bloom: Really? Senior Ed Bloom: Truly. I saw it in the eye. Will Bloom: The old lady by the swamp? Senior Ed Bloom: She was a *witch*. Will Bloom: No, she...
Marty McFly: 'Cubs win world series... against Miami'? Old Terry: Yeah, it's something, huh? Who would've thought? 100 to 1 shot! I wish I could go back to the beginning of the season, put some money on the Cubs. Marty McFly: I just meant that Miami-...
They waited awhile before lighting the candles; the gloom allowed the past to slip cozily into the present. But the memories were of a time that was gone and didn't overshadow the present. But the memories were vivid, and they made the freinds feel b...
It's a pretty good little old place after all, and I have little time for the gloomers who are eternally shrieking that this old mud ball is rolling to the bow wows. I am satisfied to take my chances with this one, thank you, and not worry about the ...
I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time: a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant ti...
Women have married because it was necessary, in order to survive economically, in order to have children who would not suffer economic deprivation or social ostracism, in order to remain respectable, in order to do what was expected of women because ...
I started writing because of a terrible feeling of powerlessness," the novelist Anita Brookner has said. The National Book Award winner Alice McDermott noted that the most difficult thing about becoming a writer was convincing herself that she had an...
The men were smashing windows and aiming their weapons through them. The driver had opened the door and was shouting for the women and children to get out and run and hide. But Ilina realized in some vague way that he never managed to actually say th...
In the book Soldiers on the Home Front, I was greatly struck by the fact that in childbirth alone, women commonly suffer more pain, illness and misery than any war hero ever does. An what's her reward for enduring all that pain? She gets pushed aside...
Hannah expected this to make her sob even more, but instead she found her tears drying up and her tummy growing warm. How dare they? How dare they do this to little girls? She understood now why her parents go so angry when they saw the result of bom...
The one thing a writer has to have is a pencil and some paper. That's enough, so long as she knows that she and she alone is in charge of that pencil, and responsible, she and she alone, for what it writes on that paper. In other words, that she's fr...
A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes. Not enough to go around, not enough cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few things. What there is must go into circulation, so that everyone can have a chance to be hap...
When we fully understand the brevity of life, its fleeting joys and unavoidable pains; when we accept the facts that all men and women are approaching an inevitable doom: the consciousness of it should make us more kindly and considerate of each othe...
We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be m...
