Greatest Sentence of All Time?

[replicant2]

Here's three from Return of the King:

"For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach."


"And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey-rain curtain turned all to silver glass and was pulled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise."


"Well, I'm back," he said.


All three passages concern Sam, the everyman and real hero of the story.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

From John Steinbeck's Cannery Row:

Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.

 

[Testament]

Actually, there were many officers' clubs that Yossarian had not helped build, but he was proudest of the one on Pianosa. It was a sturdy and complex monument to his powers of determination. Yossarian never went there to help until it was finished; then he went there often, so pleased was he with the large, fine rambling shingled building. It was truly a splendid structure, and Yossarian throbbed with a mighty sense of accomplishment each time he gazed at it and reflected that none of the work that had gone into it was his.

One of my favourite passages from a truly hysterical book.

 

[Shieldhaven]

I cheat and include a whole paragraph. I'll go with this:

"Armorica is next. The Land across the Sea. Beautiful Ynys Trebes, King Ban, Lancelot, Galahad, and Merlin. Dear Lord, what men they were, what days we had, what fights we gave and dreams we broke. In Armorica."

Doubleplus points to people who recognize this. It's one of my favorite books of All Time.

And some Old English:

Wyrd oft nereð​

unfægne eorl, þonne his ellen dēah!

And finally, even more cheating, but easy to recognize.

"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther....And one fine morning--

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Haven

 

[Captain Tagon]

From the poem of the same name that is the reason that one of the more common favorite sentences exists

Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came

Song title by The Chariot

Someday, In The Event That Mankind Actually Figures Out What It Is That This World Revolves Around, Thousands Of People Are Going To Be Shocked And Perplexed To Find Out That It Was Not Them. Sometimes This Includes Me.

 

[hong]

I cheat and include a whole paragraph. I'll go with this:

"Armorica is next. The Land across the Sea. Beautiful Ynys Trebes, King Ban, Lancelot, Galahad, and Merlin. Dear Lord, what men they were, what days we had, what fights we gave and dreams we broke. In Armorica."

Doubleplus points to people who recognize this. It's one of my favorite books of All Time.

Well, OBVIOUSLY it's from the Leonard Bernstein musical West Side Story, in particular the prelude to the hit single, "Armorica".

I like to be in Armorica, Okay by me in Armorica.
Everything free in Armorica, For a small fee in Armorica.

 

[Berandor]

Well, OBVIOUSLY it's from the Leonard Bernstein musical West Side Story, in particular the prelude to the hit single, "Armorica".

I like to be in Armorica, Okay by me in Armorica.
Everything free in Armorica, For a small fee in Armorica.

I love that song

 

[Cassiel]

Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.

Come on now, if you're going for great sentences with him, go for the gold. Err, blue.

 

[nakia]

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Haven

Love this book.

 

[Desdichado]

I"Armorica is next. The Land across the Sea. Beautiful Ynys Trebes, King Ban, Lancelot, Galahad, and Merlin. Dear Lord, what men they were, what days we had, what fights we gave and dreams we broke. In Armorica."

That's The Winter King by Bernard Cornwall, I believe.

Yep, I like that book too.