Monday, May 3, 2010

Retirement Party for Grab-A-Line Monday



Welcome to my party! Come in, come in! Enjoy some
confetti.

Have a drink.


Grab something to eat, Remember, virtual foods pack zero calories or stuff that our bodies don't need, so go crazy with the tiramisu and the nutella crepes.












Thanks for dropping by the retirement party for Grab-A-Line-Monday, my weekly blog event that started with this post in September:

Quick, grab a book from your bookshelf and find a memorable sentence. Or if you have one that you carry around in your mind, even better. Here's one that struck me the first time I read it and continued to occupy my mind:

In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady.

Flannery O'Connor
in A Good Man Is Hard To Find

If you've missed my multicolored, super-hyper announcement of a new feature on my blog, here is a recap:

Grab-A-Line Monday is the place to share sentences that stopped you in your tracks, or made you spew coffee or have stayed with you for years for other reasons. The moments when I read those sentences I count among the best in life. Since there are more books than any one of us can finish in a life time, I hope that this will become a place where we can share our treasures.

So I'd love it love it love it if you would grab a line and put it in the comments. And if it turns out you like the idea, please blog about it and share the word. Let's celebrate excellent writing and memorable moments!


Thank you so much to many of you who have come by and offered lines and passages that have caught you. Some of the quotes have so intrigued me that I have sought out out the books or short stories: Leviathan, Wee Free Men, Bernice Bobs Her Hair, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, just to name a few.

Other times, the quotes themselves have given me pause:

"What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind-then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be."

- Fyodor Dostoevsky
(A question asked by Lady Glamis via Crime and Punishment)


or made me sad:
"She had nothing left to say, so she said she loved me. And I stood there grateful for the lie."
(A line from a song by Gin Blossoms brought to GALM by Solving Sherrie)


or made me chuckle:

"Kidnapping children is not a good idea. All the same, sometimes it has to be done."

Eva Ibottson, ISLAND OF THE AUNTS
(From Shelley the story queen.)


And then there was the fast bullock confusion. It started with an innocent quote Nandini offered:
"Greetings, Ancient Uncle," he panted, "you have a very fast bullock."
YOUNG UNCLE COMES TO TOWN by Vandana Singh

But for some reason, I misread it to say "fast buttocks". which disintegrated even further in the comments...


GALM has had a great run and again, thanks to all of you who have supported it.

Now, to the contest (I hope you got the BYOQ--bring your own quote--memo on the party invitation) Please leave me one or more in the following categories:

  • your favorite quote from previous GALM posts
  • books you've read because of the quotes you've found here
  • an all-time favorite quote
The contest will be open till midnight Mountain Time tonight. The categories that reach 10 comments will generate one of the following prizes, hard copies of:

How Fiction Works by James Wood
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
If I Stay
by Gayle Forman


Added later: forgot to re-iterate that I can only send prizes to addresses within the continental US.

Speech over. Let the party begin.

14 comments:

Mary Witzl said...

Great idea!

For some reason, my mind is a blank and all I can remember is the great Dorothy Parker line -- "If you want to know what God thinks about money, just look at the people he gave it to."

There are so many better ones, but they're all deserting me because I need them...

Davin Malasarn said...

Happy Retirement party! Well, I did enjoy peeking in on GALM every once in awhile, so thank you for hosting it for as long as you did, Yat-Yee. It was a fantastic idea. I'm not sure if the book came up during GALM, but I know if was one of your blog posts that got me to finish Olive Kitteridge.

For me, the coolest part about GALM was that people often chose lines that I wouldn't have picked on my own. It was fascinating to see people's choices and preferences.

I loved this line from The Magician's Elephant by Kate DiCamillo:

Below him were the twisting, turning cobblestoned streets, the small shops with their crooked tiled roofs, and the pigeons who forever perched atop them, singing sad songs that did not quite begin and never truly ended.

And this one from Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch stole Christmas:

"Every Who down in Who-ville, the tall and the small, was singing, without any presents at all. He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming, it came. Somehow or other, it came, just the same."

That still gets me every time I read it!

And, of course there are your lines from your book. I still remember the lovely one about the pot's breath. :)

Yat-Yee said...

Mary: I have not come across the Dorothy Parker line, but it's a great one, especially when we can fall blindly into the trap of chasing it as though it was the end all and be all!

Davin: great lines! Yes, it was very cool to see what catches different readers. I just started Magician's Elephant and love that line too. And thanks so much for your encouragement for my writing.

Nandini said...

OMG! I'd completely forgotten about the fast bullocks!! Thanks for a laugh, Yat-Yee. I'll be back later today with my quote ...

Tricia J. O'Brien said...

I'm sorry for the retirement of grab-a-line but there is a season for everything. One of my all-time favorite book lines is the opening of Pearl North's Libyrinth (and may this never be):
The wind howled and the flames roared, but the books, as they died, merely fell silent.

Bish Denham said...

I was inspired to put The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate at the top of my to read list because of a quote I read on your post.

As for a favorite quote:
"Oh, Bear!" said Christopher Robin. "How I do love you!"

"So do I," said Pooh.

tanita✿davis said...

Y2, only you would give a retirement party for this! Can't wait to see what you come up with next.

Sherrie Petersen said...

I read Ballad after Tricia grabbed a line from it. LOVED that book :) (And that would be one of my favorite quotes from a GALM post.) And that quote from Shelley about kidnapping the children makes me very curious about that book!

My all time favorite quote would still have to be the one from Alex Rider. Such a great way to start that book! Although the Percy Jackson books have great opening lines too -- I can't choose!!

Lydia Kang said...

Hi there! I'm a new follower, but I couldn't help but add a comment!
One of my favorite books with quotes is A Wrinkle in Time, which is kind of cheating, because Mrs. Whatsit is always quoting other people. One of my favorites is Pascale: "The heart has its reasons, whereas reason knows nothing."

Nandini said...

Love the zero calorie cyber-snacks Yat-Yee!

Here's a quote from GALM that made me move a book already on my reading list to the top of the pile. Tricia's pick from GOING BOVINE, by Libba Bray:

"We believe our universe may be a small part of something vast--we're one house in a cosmic subdivision of houses all right next to each other. If only we could just pop in to see the neighbors, easy as opening the front door."

Yat-Yee said...

Nandini: fast bullocks will be fondly remembered.

Tricia: I remember that quote, and the spelling of the title. It is a scary thought, and yes, while the sentence is powerful, let's hope this never happens.

Bish: That Pooh quote is so sweet. And thanks for letting me know that you moved Calpurnia Tate up because of GALM. (Yes! It's not in vain!)

Tanita: The severance package is very generous as well.

Sherrie: So glad a line here led you to one of your fav authors! I agree, when someone says kidnapping children is necessary, you'd have to wonder. Which Alex Rider?

Lydia: welcome to my blog. Quotes of quotes: why not? It's interesting that Pascale came up with a quote like that!

Nandini: have some more *push plates toward you* Tricia sure can pick 'em!

Anna Staniszewski said...

Oh there are so many great quotes to choose from, but ones of my faves is the first line of THE KNIFE OF NEVER LETTING GO by Patrick Ness:

"The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don't got nothing much to say."

Yat-Yee said...

Anna: that quote is too funny. You know exactly the kind of voice you'd be getting. And talking dogs? Gotta be fun!

Julie Dao said...

Ugh, darn ... I have no quotes to bring to the party :( And my mother always taught me never to come empty-handed, too! I have cheesecake to offer, I hope that's okay! Love the quote about being found dead and ladylike on the highway.