Literary Challenge Meme
Jan. 17th, 2005 03:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
djonnNot that I really have time to be committing memes, but this one -- lifted and refined from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
janni -- amuses me.
General rules: list 20 lines from favorite books or literary works which are memorable to you, without indicating the source. Readers are invited to post comments guessing the identity of the works; after a suitable interval, the correct answers -- with credit given for accurate guesses -- will be given in a new LJ entry.
Notes for the following list: There are actually 21 quoted passages, because one of the works includes two personal favorite lines and I couldn't bring myself to eliminate one. The source material ranges from reasonably familiar to extremely obscure, and includes novels, short stories, poems, and one nonfiction volume, representing multiple genres. Be warned that I have occasionally removed intermediary character attributions in dialogue (i.e. "said [name]" in the middle of a sentence). One hint, which may or may not help with some of the more obscure items: the order of the listings represents a pattern.
1. My mind very carefully boggled.
2. Of course you know all that, if you’re reading this, so they’ll probably cut this first paragraph. I hate that-it makes me think about just giving up and not writing when people cut my work without asking.
3. “But this isn’t a fairy tale, Ruffles. It’s real life in the kingdom of Noland.”
4. I can’t tell you how often I shouted to an assistant director, “Okay, okay-- I’ll be right there,” as I typed the last few thoughts before dashing out to torment Hercules or Xena.
5. “You may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you.”
6. …the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.
7. “Well, Commander--if you’re convinced my daughter is worth more than a promising career in the Medical Service, I’m certainly not going to hold it against you.”
8. What’s loved, survives.
9. I should have known that something was very wrong when the Mules started flying erratically.
10. (a)“You can do anything in fiction as long as you’re consistent. And once something, a place, a character, is conceived, it acquires an existence of its own--a past, a present, and a future.”
(b)“My dear sir, we are all figments of Somebody’s imagination.”
11. Beware of her divine light, and take cover.
12. I am, by all that’s holy, going to do so on my terms. And you’re going tol have a hell of a time helping women from the bottom of a well if you don’t go along with this.
13. “And now that the Game is finished, and we’ve decided to bury the pieces,” I added, “may we have the strength to resist all temptation to dig them up again!”
14. “I know a little bit, but not enough, about everything. I’m a librarian, remember?”
15. “My God,” she said aloud. “It’s The Lustful Turk.”
16. The autocrat, Mistress Radegund d’Portiers, looked about ready to shatter into tears. And it’s only Wednesday. Poor lady.
17. The Arts Quad was also one hell of a place to fly kites, even on a day with no wind.
18. Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
19. “Oh, I don’t know. Slay a few monsters, outwit a few magicians, drain a few Chaotic Zones, negotiate a few treaties . . .”
”And after lunch?”
20. For the world’s more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
janni -- amuses me.General rules: list 20 lines from favorite books or literary works which are memorable to you, without indicating the source. Readers are invited to post comments guessing the identity of the works; after a suitable interval, the correct answers -- with credit given for accurate guesses -- will be given in a new LJ entry.
Notes for the following list: There are actually 21 quoted passages, because one of the works includes two personal favorite lines and I couldn't bring myself to eliminate one. The source material ranges from reasonably familiar to extremely obscure, and includes novels, short stories, poems, and one nonfiction volume, representing multiple genres. Be warned that I have occasionally removed intermediary character attributions in dialogue (i.e. "said [name]" in the middle of a sentence). One hint, which may or may not help with some of the more obscure items: the order of the listings represents a pattern.
1. My mind very carefully boggled.
2. Of course you know all that, if you’re reading this, so they’ll probably cut this first paragraph. I hate that-it makes me think about just giving up and not writing when people cut my work without asking.
3. “But this isn’t a fairy tale, Ruffles. It’s real life in the kingdom of Noland.”
4. I can’t tell you how often I shouted to an assistant director, “Okay, okay-- I’ll be right there,” as I typed the last few thoughts before dashing out to torment Hercules or Xena.
5. “You may not lie idly expecting the second coming of anybody now, because the world is yours and it is up to you.”
6. …the best and the wisest man whom I have ever known.
7. “Well, Commander--if you’re convinced my daughter is worth more than a promising career in the Medical Service, I’m certainly not going to hold it against you.”
8. What’s loved, survives.
9. I should have known that something was very wrong when the Mules started flying erratically.
10. (a)“You can do anything in fiction as long as you’re consistent. And once something, a place, a character, is conceived, it acquires an existence of its own--a past, a present, and a future.”
(b)“My dear sir, we are all figments of Somebody’s imagination.”
11. Beware of her divine light, and take cover.
12. I am, by all that’s holy, going to do so on my terms. And you’re going tol have a hell of a time helping women from the bottom of a well if you don’t go along with this.
13. “And now that the Game is finished, and we’ve decided to bury the pieces,” I added, “may we have the strength to resist all temptation to dig them up again!”
14. “I know a little bit, but not enough, about everything. I’m a librarian, remember?”
15. “My God,” she said aloud. “It’s The Lustful Turk.”
16. The autocrat, Mistress Radegund d’Portiers, looked about ready to shatter into tears. And it’s only Wednesday. Poor lady.
17. The Arts Quad was also one hell of a place to fly kites, even on a day with no wind.
18. Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
19. “Oh, I don’t know. Slay a few monsters, outwit a few magicians, drain a few Chaotic Zones, negotiate a few treaties . . .”
”And after lunch?”
20. For the world’s more full of weeping
Than you can understand.
