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What quotes do you have memorised?

Started by Sin Agog, January 11, 2019, 01:56:01 PM

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Sin Agog

I used to have a lot of non-father father figures around me when I was growing up, and they always made me feel like I'd barely been born whenever they rattled off this or that aphorism or bon mot.  Fuck a sense of well-being, or a circle of friends who know and love you, growing up meant having at least four quotes I could cycle through that would make me feel like the dandiest urbanite, the most urbane dandy.  I once woke up a friend of mine at 3 in the am who'd been crashing at my bedsit by reciting that "It was you, Johnny..." speech from On the Waterfront over and over.

So what hoary old chestnuts do you wheel out regularly?  Most of mine are from Quentin Crisp, but I do use these two a fair bit:

T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia): "All men dream, but not equally.  Those who dream by night, in the dusty recesses of their mind, wake to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes to make them possible."

And this Henry David Thoreau line which I'm sure I got from an old movie: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.  Why should we be in such haste to succeed?  If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

Also, as a teen, once spewed out a whole Bukowski poem about the police being 'paid protectors of the present' when the po-po said there should be a curfew on kids my age.  That learned them!

madhair60


Neville Chamberlain

I always think back to my dear old grandpa and the many of words of wisdom and encouragement he imparted to me throughout my childhood - the most memorable of all being "Ah, this takes me back" when he put his car in reverse!

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

 " They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself. "

Also:

"Men are rats: men are fleas on rats. Men are *ameobas* on fleas on rats. "

Captain Z

"It's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind"

pancreas

Most of Withnail and I
Most of Pinter's Celebration
Some bits of Shakespeare
Random things

Icehaven

Quote from: Sin Agog on January 11, 2019, 01:56:01 PM
I once woke up a friend of mine at 3 in the am who'd been crashing at my bedsit by reciting that "It was you, Johnny..." speech from On the Waterfront over and over.


Didn't memorise it that well did you, it's Charlie!

Neville Chamberlain

I used to be able to recite the entirety of "Ink and Incapability". Just need to watch it a couple more times and I could probably do it again!

Spoon of Ploff

From Dirty Work (1933):

"Somewhere in the world an iron chair is weeping."






yes I know. its not right... but a memorized misremembered quote is still a memorized quote... I think.



gilbertharding

Head and Performance are two films I can and have recited large chunks of.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

I once knew someone who could recite the entire screenplay for the first " Lord Of The Rings " film in Russian and English. Jolly impressive, I'm sure you all agree.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain


Norton Canes

"You will never amount to anything while you retain your propensity for vulgar facetiousness"

And the whole of The Cat In The hat

katzenjammer

What's the weather like?

Well it's like a manifestation of the planet's gaseous envelope due to differential warming at various latitudes caused by solar radiation.

From The Crow Road

Totally hilarious, amirite?




Sin Agog

Quote from: icehaven on January 11, 2019, 02:14:47 PM
Didn't memorise it that well did you, it's Charlie!

Well now I feel like a right palooka.  (That was one I could never nail down).

On the subject of movies, I sometimes do that Lawrence Olivier/The Entertainer speech with, "See these eyes? I'm dead behind these eyes."

I must have about half of Sir Henry at Rawlinson End memorised.

There's an awesome Jason Robards movie called A Thousand Clowns with an angsty monologue I used to do perfectly, but could use some brushing up on.

"Five months ago I was on the subway on my way to work, was sitting on the express same as every morning looking out the window watching the local stops go by in the dark with an empty head and my arms folded, not feeling great, not feeling rotten, just not feeling. And for a minute I couldn't remember, I didn't know, unless I really concentrated, whether it was a Tuesday or a Thursday or a... for a minute it could have been any day, Arn.

"I gotta know what day it is. I gotta know what's the name of the game and what the rules are without anyone else telling me. You gotta own your own days and name 'em, each one of 'em, every one of 'em, or else the years go right by and none of them belong to you."

pancreas

Quote from: katzenjammer on January 11, 2019, 02:30:56 PM
What's the weather like?

Well it's like a manifestation of the planet's gaseous envelope due to differential warming at various latitudes caused by solar radiation.

From The Crow Road

Totally hilarious, amirite?

Essentially a Dad joke, so yes.


Jerzy Bondov

Often, when I am out for dinner with my well-to-do friends, I like to absolutely bellow the Spanish Inquisition sketch at the top of my lungs and hammer on the table with my fists. Everybody finds it very funny.


SteveDave

"Excuse me, but you've got shitty shoes on you shitty shoe'd bastard"

Jerzy Bondov

Dear Mr. Burns.
I'm so glad you enjoyed my son's blood, and your card was just great.
In case you can't tell, I'm being sarcastic. You stink! You are a senile, bucktoothed old mummy with bony girl arms and you smell like an elephant's butt.

pancreas

'Never, Marge, never. I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, I may offend some of the blue-noses with my cocky stride and musky odours. Oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called City Fathers, who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson?".'

'Homer, just get rid of the sugar.'

gilbertharding

"She's got a hard pull, doesn't she? Zero to 60 in 7.5. She'll do a quarter of a mile, 13.40.
"Performance and image - that's what it's all about. I bought her in Bakersfield, California. I was testing jets at the time. It got so I wasn't getting enough action on the ground. You know what I mean. I mean, you just can't stay with the same high forever.
"So, when the 455 came out with a Mark IV ram air and a beefed blower and a Carter high-riser setup, I was on line. 390 horsepower. 500 foot pounds of torque... whatever that is. It's all in the folder right there in the glove compartment, if you wanna take a look at it."




"Gee, mister, I'll bet it's pretty quick."

"You wanna find out?"

"Well, ordinarily, I'd jump at the, uh, opportunity... but the thing is, I'm just not in the habit of seeing the Chevy work against a two-bit piece of junk."

"Let's make it 50."

"Make it three yards, motherfucker, and we'll have an automobile race.
"Where to?
"

gilbertharding

Quote from: pancreas on January 11, 2019, 03:45:45 PM
'Never, Marge, never. I can't live the button-down life like you. I want it all: the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles. Sure, I may offend some of the blue-noses with my cocky stride and musky odours. Oh, I'll never be the darling of the so-called City Fathers, who cluck their tongues, stroke their beards, and talk about "What's to be done with this Homer Simpson?".'

'Homer, just get rid of the sugar.'

"Have the Rolling Stones killed."

"But Sir, those aren't..."

"Do as I say!"

chveik

mostly Pascal and Wittgenstein

"If I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."


hummingofevil

"One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a student; do not make a statue of me as one day that statue may fall and strike you dead." - Nietzsche

"I don't want to be immortal through my work. I want to be immortal by not dying." Woody Allen

"Money doesn't make you happy, but money gives you choices and choices make you happy." - Tim from Big Brother 2 or 3 (the one who came in late and dyed his hair)

garnish

QuoteIn this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence

Sebastian Cobb

Death to Videodrome, long live the new flesh.

Sebastian Cobb

'I BET YOU DO ALMOND YOU DIRTY OLD BOLLOCKS, I BET YOU FUCKING DO'.

touchingcloth

Too many space documentaries mean random snippets of radio chatter are burned into my brain:

QuoteWe copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys here about to turn blue - we're breathing again.

On a similar theme:

QuoteWe choose to go to the moon! We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they are easy but because they are hard.

That one sticks because "and do the other things" feels so out of place in a political speech usually quoted without the other things that are being referred to (shades of people saying "...but he doesn't say what 'that' is!").