Fave one liner from a book?

[judgejudyandexecutioner]

"It's lipless mouth quivered and slathered"
War of the Worlds - H G Wells

Now, that,? said Sophy, ?I am very glad to know, because if ever I should desire to please you I shall know just how to set about it. I daresay I shan?t, but one likes to be prepared for any event, however unlikely"

The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer.

And another vote for Sir T P and PG Wodehouse... TP can throw in the most beautiful of lines in the oddest of circumstances/settings and PGW is sniggeringly funny almost constantly!

"Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on
earth."

Villette - Charlotte Bronte

Also "Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love." Arundal Tomb by Philip Larkin

Medvedenko: Why do you always wear black?
Masha: I am in mourning for my life.

Chekhov's The Seagull

Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19?28

Gilbert Blythe: It'll be three years before I finish medical school. Even then there won't be any diamond sunbursts or marble halls.
Anne Shirley: I don't want diamond sunbursts, or marble halls. I just want you.

Anne of Avonlea

?To lose one parent may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.?

Not a novel, but a line from Lady Bracknell in the play The Importance of Being Earnest.

Also, "a handbag?" said in the manner of Edith Evans in the 1952 film. One of my dad's favourites when I was running round the house getting ready for a night out and looking for said accessory!

?His mastery of the hard-luck story was of a kind never achieved by persons not wholly concentrated on themselves.? Anthony Powell, A Question of Upbringing

“I'm me and nobody else; and whatever people think I am or say I am, that's what I'm not, because they don't know a bloody thing about me.”
? Alan Sillitoe, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Absolutely loving this thread.

'...I leave it to be settled by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny or reward filial disobedience.'

The end of Northanger Abbey. Not my favourite Austen overall, but that line is a belly laugh and a dagger to the forehead at the same moment and I re-read NA more often than any other just to get that payoff.

'Find a way to make beauty necessary; find a way to make necessity beautiful.'

• Ann Michaels, Fugitive Pieces.

'I am cold, sir.'
'Cold? Yes, and standing in a puddle. Go then, Jane,' yet still he would not release my hand.

• Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte. (From memory - may not be accurate.) Not a one-liner but, oh, the sexual tension in that scene!

'…and he drank all the milk, and all the orange juice, and all Daddy’s beer, and all the water in the tap.'

The Captain looked at Fermina Daza and saw on her eyelashes the first glimmer of wintry frost. Then he looked at Florentino Ariza, his invincible power, his intrepid love, and he was overwhelmed by the belated suspicion that it is life, more than death, that has no limits.
Gabriel García Márquez- Love in the Time of Cholera

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way

Can't abide Dickens normally, but he is worth wading through for this line alone

Winter is coming.

'Et tu Brute?'
'Thank Lewis for me'

Nowhere near as high brow as the rest of you, but Cody McFadyens

"Broken things still catch the light"

Still haunts me.

Can't believe nobody has mentioned:

?I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.?

Charlotte Bronte- Jane Eyre

"Eowyn, do you not love me, or will you not?"

Faramir to Eowyn, Return of the King - Tolkien

"...now is now. It can never be a long time ago."

Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House In The Big Woods

"There is nothing like piling with somebody to make you into old friends" Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

*puking not piling

But some women only require an emergency to make them fit for one.
Thomas Hardy, Far from the madding crowd.

But if course, once in every lifetime tomorrow never comes.
Antonia Forest, The Thuggary Affair

Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

Cannot believe I forgot this one - it is brilliant whenever I have to say NO to the DCs insane requests.

Three quotes from The Name Of The Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. One of my absolute favourite books

?Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.?

?The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind"

?It's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.?

"Everybody shits"

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood