guess the quote

[kate_nepveu]

The game of identifying cool lines from speculative fiction novels over at Tor.com seems to have died down, without my getting to use these lines I'd picked out, so rather than let them languish in a file until the next time the game comes around, here they are:

1. These deus ex machinas have a way of sneaking up on us literary types.
2. No one was sorry for anything, because no living creature had done anything wrong; bad things had happened by spontaneous generation in some weird, chilly, geometric otherworld, and "were to be regretted."
3. Miracles are like meatballs, because nobody can exactly agree what they are made of, where they come from, or how often they should appear.
4. The National Symphony's performance of Handel's Messiah had started at eight thirty, so the choir was winding up the "Hallelujah Chorus" when the lead tenor turned into a wolf.
5. Truth won't always out, the wages of sin are bankable, and those who live by the sword perish mostly of syphilis.
6. Let the fairy-tale begin on a winter's morning, then, with one drop of blood new-fallen on the ivory snow: a drop as bright as a clear-cut ruby, red as the single spot of claret on the lace cuff.

Identify a quote, and you get to post your own. Written speculative fiction only please.

Comments

[desdenova.livejournal.com]

Well, the last one is Kushner's Swordspoint.

[kate_nepveu]

Yup.

[roadrunnertwice]

Hell, beat to it! (And I'd just started reading it, too.)

[chomiji]

Let the fairy-tale begin on a winter's morning, then, with one drop of blood new-fallen on the ivory snow: a drop as bright as a clear-cut ruby, red as the single spot of claret on the lace cuff.

From Swordspoint, by Ellen Kushner.

[kate_nepveu]

Yup^2.

[chomiji]

Yes, oops, I saw as soon as I posted that I was too late! That's what I get for going back to read the directions a second time ... .

;-)

[kate_nepveu]

Hey, no problem. You all can post replacement quotes if you like--the more the merrier.

[chomiji]

So we give you those replacement quotes here?

[kate_nepveu]

Yup. Or I suppose you could post in your own journal, but do leave a link back, please.

[redbird]

The last one is from _Swordspoint_, and I have no idea of the others.

[kate_nepveu]

Yup^3. =>

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

2. Terry Pratchett, Going Postal

Almost posted four of them, but then realized the rule implies to only answer one.

[kate_nepveu]

I hadn't intended to imply that! But if you prefer to pace yourself, that's okay too.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I'll give others a chance, but one is I, 4 is a short story. Five is Swordpoint by Ellen Kushner. 3 isn't familiar.

[kate_nepveu]

Your numbers are off--_Swordspoint_ is 6.

*goes to change list type to be numbered*

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I'm a writer, not a mathematician, damnit!

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

2 is from Going Postal, or it fits so very perfectly smack dab in the middle of a passage there.
Edited to cut the other answers, I fail at reading comprehension.

I have no quotes of my own at the moment...

[kate_nepveu]

Yup!

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

5 is very familiar, but I can't quite place it...

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

3 is from the Carnivorous Carnival by Lemony Snicket

[kate_nepveu]

Yup!

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

"He had to be forcibly dissuaded from strangling his son."
"So have we all from time to time."

[doire]

Well, I haven't read the book, but I have read your review of 4. This reminds me that I meant to, because how can I resist music and wolves.

[kate_nepveu]

Heh.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

I haven't a clue on any of them -- but wanted to mention that #2 has been referred to as the "past exonerative".

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Argh, I've read 5 but I can't place it.

[tool-of-satan.livejournal.com]

I finally got tired of thinking about it and Googled it. Turns out I have actually read the thing recently, and two of the quotes I have saved for this game are from the same book. (Which doesn't help you, I realize.)