Fave one liner from a book?

Mrs Koala upthread beat me to it.

"This is not an exit" Bret Easton Ellis-American Psycho.

It's a weird coincidence thing because I found myself repeating this one line in my head this week and I only read it once back in 1991.

I love that well known quote in Gone with the Wind 'Tomorrow is another Day' though I am far from being an optimist!

An amusing one from Pride & Prejudice from Mr Bennett

'For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?''

"But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known."

Julius Ceasar, Shakespeare

For when I'm fretting about things I have no influence over, or where I'm doing my damnest already and just can't do any more.

I might have to give terry pratchett another go, you know.
Some of these are great, and lovely to see pg Wodehouse get quoted so often.
Man was a genius.
I will add the great Dorothy Parker to the mix:
"What fresh hell is this?"

I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it.

Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar (I think)

"They are not long, the days of wine and roses:"

Ernest Dowson

From his poem "They are not long" which continues "the weeping and the laughter".

Poignant, as the poet died at 32.

The man in black fled across the desert and the gunslinger followed.

Stephen King

"Droll thing life is; that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic to a futile purpose." Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Thank you Rebecca

?Everyone who tells a story tells it differently, just to remind us that everybody sees it differently. Some people say there are true things to be found, some people say all kinds of things can be proved. I don't believe them. The only thing for certain is how complicated it all is, like string full of knots. It's all there but hard to find the beginning and impossible to fathom the end. The best you can do is admire the cat's cradle, and maybe knot it up a bit more.?

― Jeanette Winterson, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit

A particular favourite is PG Wodehouse: "I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled."

But so glad to see all the quotes from P&P. The woman was a genius, and I will fight anyone who says otherwise. One rarely quoted line from P&P, but one which I love, is when Charlotte Lucas's father speaks to Mr Darcy at the Netherfield ball and says (quoting from memory) "Dancing is the hallmark of a civilised society" and Darcy replies, "And of the most primitive. Every savage can dance." For me it sums up the book and possibly all of her books, and come to think of it, possibly every book, because it highlights the tension between our animal passions and the social imperative to suppress them.

KatyDid - Swallows and Amazons!

FunnyLittleFrog - that is one of my favourites too - chilling!

Lots of mine have been taken

In particular, Harriet realising she has fallen in love with Peter. But also the Austen and Douglas Adams ones. And the reading/breathing one from To Kill A Mockingbird.

So, another one from Gaudy Night:

It was quite true that the spontaneous affections of Reggie Pomfret had, somehow, made it easier to believe that Peter?s own feelings might be something more than an artist?s tenderness for his own achievement. But it was indecent of Peter to reach that conclusion so rapidly. She resented the way in which he walked in and out of her mind as if it were his own flat.

NotTreadingGrapes I never meet anyone who's read The Little Drummer Girl, but I think it might be my favourite Le Carre.

"it was Captain Holly of the Sandleford Owsla" from Watership Down. So exciting when I was 7.

?Though sympathy alone can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.?
From Dracula

'She walked rapidly in the thin June sunshine towards the worst horror of all'

Brighton Rock.

From "THe country CHild" by Alison Uttely, which we reat at age 11 at a vair posh girl's school
"She buried her face in her muff in ecstasy"

I thought nothing of it until I re-read it age 28

'It affected my attitude towards society. Before I had been vaguely conscious of something rotten somewhere, prison crystallised this. The old whore society really lifted up her skirts and the stench was pretty foul.?
Joe Orton quote, I think it must be from 'Prick up your Ears' biography.

"Her name is Ruth really but Uncle Jim says pirates are ruthless"
Name that book

"This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in summer; the windows are full west." Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Pride and Prejudice. Often used when out and about with my parents. And countless ones by Mr Bennett - many of them already mentioned above.

Also another couple of Douglas Adams ones.
?What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"
"Ask a glass of water!?

and

"Life! Don't talk to me about life.?

Mr Bennet again:

?For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn??

Pride and Prejudice
Jane Austen

An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
(Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)

Also

The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.
(Terry Pratchett, Hogfather)

Since my absolute fave (I write this sitting in the kitchen sink), has already been mentioned it'll have to be "better drowned than duffers" from swallows and amazons.

Mr. Bennet: Well, Lizzy, from this day henceforth it seems you must be a stranger to one of your parents... Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr. Collins... and I will never see you again if you do.

Pride and Prejudice