Memorable Dialogue

Bitchery reader Amy wrote and asked me a question that I’ve had a ball pondering as I look back over my readering history:

When I was fourteen, I bought my first Harlequin at a yard sale and read it so many times that now, at 40, I can repeat paragraphs of it. (Sara Craven, Solitaire. Last line of dialog: “There is a time in the life of every jeune fille in which the locking of doors is required. Your time is now.”)

I was curious if you two—or if your readers had the same experience—we never forget our first, right? Which book popped our cherries, and how much do we remember?

We’ve definitely discussed this topic before, and I’ve written about the first romance I read, Midsummer Magic by Catherine Coulter. But the dialogue Amy quoted?

That’s kinda hot, right there. Damn.

So I got to thinking – what dialogue do I remember years after reading it? My memory, it is a funky, funky place. I can recite the last paragraph of Great Expectations, probably due to too many viewings of the Beauty and the Beast pilot,  but romance dialogue doesn’t often stick in my brain.

Inner HarborNotable exception: one brother in the Quinn quartet by Nora Roberts, and I want to say it was Philip but not in the novel wherein he was the hero, rants about wanting privacy and says he’s going to go live in a bunker and change his name to “Pierre.” For some reason, I laughed so hard at that I fell off my beach chair, and even now, when I get irritated at too large of a crowd, Hubby will ask me if I’m heading for the bunker.

I don’t know that I’d make a good Pierre.

So what line of dialogue from a romance has rocked your socks to the point that, long after those socks were lost in the dryer, you still remember it?

And anyone got a lead on a really cushy bunker with wifi? Lemme know

 

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  1. shaunee says:

    Cat,

    Forgot about that fab Jude Devereaux line!  I sighed a lot over that one.

  2. Scotsie says:

    I wish I could remember the good stuff, but all I can come up with is what made me stop reading Beatrice Small.  Just couldn’t handle anymore “man spear” and “love sheath” talk.  I do know that Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, and Loretta Chase will make me snarf whatever beverage I happen to be enjoying while reading.

    Oh, and let’s not forget that Ayla invented tampons too.  THAT scene stuck with me.

  3. Mac says:

    Hi Shaunee!  Guess what I bought yesterday.  *clutches paperback Kushiel’s Justice to bosom and LOVES HER SOME IMRIEL, OMG*

  4. Cat Marsters says:

    Oh, and let’s not forget that Ayla invented tampons too.  THAT scene stuck with me.

    I’d forgotten it.  Possibly on purpose.

  5. shaunee says:

    Mac,

    Amazon sent me an email about me loving Carey’s other books, so why not get this one a few days ago.  Do let me know what you think of this one.  Still have no tv and am really running out of things to read.

    Had no electricity for the last couple of days and wanted to slit my wrists.  Thought I’d do what “blue stockings” do and read by candle light.  Do you have any idea how hard it is to read by candle light?  Plus, it gets hot after a while.  It really doesn’t pay to be a blue stocking unless I’m doing the candle thing wrong…  (how could applying flame to wick be wrong?)

  6. Mac says:

    Gail Dayton—oh, my.  Did you get a response from Lindsey?

  7. Alpha Lyra says:

    I can’t seem to summon them to memory at will, but

    Pride and Prejudice

    is full of quotes that fly through my head when I’m triggered by hearing certain words and phrases.

  8. Scotsie says:

    Can I jump on the Kushiel’s squee-train???

  9. HelenB says:

    Can’t think of a romance off hand but I can remember whole chunks of Young Frankenstein – starring Gene Wilder. Paraphrasing one character “there you go, after 7 or 8 quick ones, off to boast to the boys” or something like that. Love that movie.

    spam boy38 – I wish!

  10. Mare Iridium says:

    I am much better at remembering scenes than dialogue, but a few do stick out in my mind:

    Elizabeth Lowell’s Pearl Cove is one of my favorite books, and the line “What’s it like to love someone enough to die in their place?” has always stuck with me.

    Also, in Nora Robert’s book Valley of Silence, basically the whole book is so romantic and quote worthy, but in particular the line Cian says to Moira “If my heart beat it would beat for you.”  It was one of my book clutching to chest moments.

  11. Mac says:

    Scotsie:  Love as thou wilt, baby.  Love as thou wilt.

    (okay, yeah, I was dying to say that.)

    Shaunee—You know I will.

  12. jennyOH says:

    Oh god, glad I’m not the only one who was traumatized by Warrior’s Woman – that’s the first romance I ever read, too (if it can be called romance…it struck me as a little eurgh).  Although when I read it (I found it in my mum’s room when I was about 10) all the burgeoning manhoods were just as strange as the science fiction setting.

  13. It’s not romantic, but everyone remembers Cordelia’s line from Lois McMaster Bujold’s Barrayar

    “Shopping…Want to see what I bought?”

    Memorable romance dialog for me includes The Grand Sophy, where Charles finally declares his love:
    “I don’t!  I dislike you excessively!”

    You had to be there.[g]

  14. Mary says:

    Warrior’s Woman infuriated me so much that I wrote my very first Amazon.com review in order to vent my frustrations.  The “hero” was named Challen and he punished the heroine by refusing to let her wear clothes and impregnated her on purpose without her knowledge (somehow her race “forgot” how to make babies other than in a test tube).  The woman also had a skeevy onboard sex android.  So much to hate!  Oddly, I was raised on a steady diet of Star Trek at home, so what really bothered me the most was that the weapon she carried was called a “phazor.”

  15. Ciara says:

    Not a romance, but definitely one of my favourite quotes of all time, from LM Montgomerys Anne series, it’s either Rainbow Valley or Anne of Ingleside.  One of Annes kids has been earwigging on the sewing circle and comes up with this question,
    “Are widows really women who’s dreams have come true?”  It sounds just like something you don’t want your kid repeating!

  16. Ann says:

    First Romance?  A Woodwiss—not sure which one.

    Quotes?  Ah, too many…  But my wedding vows to my husband included this passage from “Romancing Mr. Bridgerton”:  “I love you with my past and I love you for my future.  I love you for the children we’ll have and for the years we’ll have together.  I love you for every one of my smiles, and even more, every one of your smiles.”

  17. Oh, and I just thought of one more favorite piece of dialog, from Mary Balogh’s More Than A Mistress:

      “If you were the last man on earth and you were to pester me daily for a million years, I would not marry you.  I will not do so.”
      “My dear Lady Sara.” His voice was haughty and bored. “I do beg you to have some regard for my pride.  A million years?  I assure you I would stop asking after the first thousand.”

  18. GrowlyCub says:

    My first romance was a Heyer, probably Arabella.  The first book I identified as a romance and read in the original and not translation was the Catherine Coulter’s Song book with the infamous cream in it.

    I thought Ayla invented panty liners not tampons.  🙂

    I wanted to write Lindsey a letter about Warrior’s Woman.  I never did, but I wish I had.  The really awful thing about this book is that you can hate it at the same time as being sickly fascinated by it and that I read the sequel (what was I *thinking*?)

    I’m terrible at memorizing dialogue, but I’m pretty sure the mouse corpse scene from Chase’s LoS that I just read last week for the first time will stick with me for a while.

    “Can’t a fellow trust you for a moment? How many times do I have to tell you to leave my friends alone?” Miss Trent coolly withdrew her hand.
    Trent gave Dain an apologetic look. “Don’t pay it any mind, Dain. She does that to all the chaps. I don’t know why she does it, when she don’t want ’em. Just like them fool cats of Aunt Louisa’s. Go to all the bother of catching
    a mouse, and then the confounded things won’t eat ’em. Just leave the corpses lying about for someone else to pick up.”

  19. Mac says:

    Growly THERE WAS A —pardon, I must not shout—there was a “Warrior Woman” sequel!???!!  (Dare I ask what happened in it??? Tell me she fought her way to freedom.)

    I remember some beautiful bits of “The Shadow and the Star,” I think it was, where the main guy is trying to explain to his wife, whom he married slightly reluctantly, that he was sorry he had all these terrible urges and sex was bad, and he KNEW it was bad he was damaged, and this is what I am, and you have to come to terms, and oh god, can you even live with me I suck oh god, and the dear little thing comes back with (to paraphrase) “Well actually I’ve been trying to figure out for the past hour how to hint that I’d like to go to bed with you, like, now, please thanks.”  Of course it was much more attractively put in the original text, which is why I should probably stick to poetry bits.

    And “Carrots” in Anne of Green Gables wound up being one of the prettiest words ever, didn’t it.

  20. Chicklet says:

    So that line holds great significance for me—thanks for reminding me!

    Aw shucks, ‘tweren’t nothin’. *g*

    And that cover IS horrible. *shudders*

    Spamblocker: lot96. I thought it was The Crying of Lot 49? The Thomas Pynchon book? I have no idea who wrote about Lot 96.

  21. GrowlyCub says:

    Mac,

    all I remember that it was in the same world and the same things happened to another woman.  I think I’ve tried to sublimate it, erase it from my memory and see what you guys have done…you’ve resurrected the memory and I’ll be scarred for life now.  And since I never throw away nor trade in my books, I have those two abominations on my shelves upstairs…

    My strongest concern about them at the time (and now) was that there would be young impressionable women out there (I must have been in my late teens or early twens) living in abusive households who would believe that this treatment of women was not only okay but necessary if it was written about in a romance novel and that abuse means that a guy loves you.

    I wonder if anybody ever got an answer out of Lindsey or the publisher about what the H*(% they were thinking publishing these books.

  22. GrowlyCub says:

    Oh, and yes, I remember the Avon/Leonie scene. Beautiful. I’ve actually used it in reference to my husband and myself (seeing as I’m not wife no. 1 :).
    I feel a re-read coming on.

  23. orangehands says:

    TP and Neil, in Good Omens: (as the kraken-sea animal- is coming up and spots a boat): There is a tiny metal thing above it. The kraken stirs. And ten billion sushi dinners cry out for vengeance.

    Still makes me laugh, every time I think of it.

    Mr. Impossible is so far my favorite Loretta Chase, and this happens when Rupert and Daphne first meet, and the jailer is selling Daphne on him:

    “Is it not remarkable how he’s kept up his spirits in this vile place?” Obligingly, Rupert began to whistle.

    Anne Bishop, Queen of Darkness, right before the first time Daemon and Jaenelle (deeply in love and both virgins) made love:
    J: “You look how I feel.”
    D: “Sick and terrified?”

    Omibob, I have so many of these. Also, the second poem I’ve ever memorized I read in a great book called Armageddon Summer by Emily Dickinson (uh, the poem, not the book):

    “Faith” is a fine invention
    When Gentlmen can see-
    But Microscopes are prudent
    In an Emergency

    And one of the most heartrending lines (don’t remember it exactly) I’ve ever read was in a book called Such a Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess (though not explicit and the ending is improbable, very harsh and touching): If you didn’t count incest, she was still a virgin.

    And now I should go do homework…

    million34: yep, I got a million and 34 of them left in my brain

  24. RStewie says:

    Ohh, I’m the CAPTAIN of the Kushiel Love Train!  Squee! Squee!  ANY mention of vambraces makes me gush like a pre-teen girl at her first Jr. Prom! 

    My favorite quote, though, is the end of Flowers from the Storm,

    My sweet life.  Three horses own—two coaches—velvet—chambers—cushions—bed…my kisses.  All my kisses.  All to be…for thee alone.

    And where my two favorites collided, Kinsale’s Shadowheart, where Elena and Allegreto play domination games and leave on the vambraces!!!  Squee!

    My first romance novel was some horridness involving a Native American Indian and a red-headed White Chick who is abducted numerous times, sexxored by the NA, and ends up in England, where said sexxoring NA interrupts a ball in native attire and re-abducts her to the relative safety of his teepee for additional sexxoring of her pregnant self. 

    Needless to say, it was the sexxoring that kept me going until I was grown up enough to realize I prefer a well-written romance to random sexxoring.

  25. Carmen says:

    Not from a romance but one of my all time favorites –

    Hard Eight – Janet E.

    Right after Stephanie falls out of Ranger’s truck drunk in her mother’s yard:

    “Fucking rabbit.”

    Makes me laugh just thinking about it.

  26. Mellie says:

    First romance I remember reading- Twins by Katherine Stone.

    My most memorable dialog really isn’t from a romance novel either- it’s a poem by William Butler Yeats- When You Are Old

    When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
    And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
    And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
    Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
    How many loved your moments of glad grace,
    And loved your beauty with love false or true,
    But one man loved the pilgrim Soul in you,
    And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
    And bending down beside the glowing bars,
    Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
    And paced upon the mountains overhead
    And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

    Sigh…

  27. Chrissie says:

    I think that’s from Sea Swept (Philip changing his name to Pierre!) – it made me LOL too, and moreover, Sea Swept was the romance that popped my genre cherry! (Also remember Ethan saying “I’d rather get hit in the head with a brick than go to the mall on a Saturday” in the same conversation”… heh)

  28. Deb Kinnard says:

    I cut my romance-reading teeth on Anya Seton’s KATHERINE. Good stuff—so good that I’ve read it probably 30-40 times since then and much of it sticks permanently in my mind.

    Greatest love lines IMO:

    Katherine: It was a whim, my lord. Will you be gentle with my whims?
    John: I may not always be gentle. But by the soul of my mother, I shall love you until I die.

    YESS!

  29. amhartnett says:

    Speaking strictly romance, it was Elizabeth Lowell’s Untamed. It had a blond fellow on the cover with the most amazing arse I’d ever seen.The line burned into my brain is “What was once dry is now wet!”

    That was about 15 years ago and since, I’ve been looking for an excuse to utter that line in all seriousness in my real life.

  30. Mac says:

    Well if we’re not strictly sticking to romance, “Stay gold, Ponyboy”  (The Outsiders) can still reduce me to a quivering lump.

    Nature’s first green is gold
    The hardest hue to hold
    Her early leaf’s a flower
    But only so an hour
    Then leaf subsides to leaf
    So Eden came to grief
    So dawn goes down to day
    Nothing gold can stay.

  31. Suze says:

    The really sad thing about the Lindsay Warrior books (yes, books plural!) is that they’re pretty much a MORE ROMANTIC ripoff of a scifi series by Sharon Green, published early 80’s? Late 70’s?  Now those were messed up.  (Yeah, I devoured them all!)

    Green’s heroine was an empathic Xenomediator (mediates between non-earth people) who gets sent to this barbaric planet to essentially be a sex slave to the barbarian lord guy. Her powers are suppressed when she’s home on earth, and fiercely resented/coveted by the barbarians. It gets very convoluted and conspiracy-ish.  And VERY alpha male.  Stick a modern woman in a world where women are essentially property and what does she do?  Spends a lot of time being a victim, in spite of her awesome psychic powers. ‘Cause that barbarian guy is just so, so manly!

    Lindsay’s was much more palatable, if you can believe it.

  32. Lucy Maude says:

    Great butt aside I loathed that cover, amhartnett. The model was the fair and clean shave while Dominic was dark and hairy. My first lesson that that the people who pick romance covers don’t actually bother to read the book.

    Absolutely, RStewie. Christian long speech in the Meetinghouse at the end of Flowers from the Storm are the romance gold standard, IMO.

    No rule but love! Duchess!. . .Think you a meek mild little Quaker?. . Stubborn. . .self-will. . .pride-opionated liar. Won’t curtsey to the king, damn you!

    I give you. . . my daughter. . .because I’ll keep her. . .Because only you. . . can teach her courage enough. . .can teacher her to. . .be like you. A duchess. A duchess inside.

    The whole Anne of Green Gables series is my romance touchstone. Gilbert will always be my ideal hero, but when Matthew is dying and he tells her,

    I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne.

    I lose it. Every. Damn. Time.

  33. aggiedoone says:

    From Jude Deveraux’s Sweet Liar:

    “He was the most perfectly formed man she’d ever imagined.  He was movie stars, men in underwear commercials, guys at the gym, the construction worker in the red T-shirt who’d whistled at her but she’d pretended she hadn’t heard; he was the men in three-piece suits whose brains were as sexy as their bodies; he was lazy, insolent seventeen-year-old boys whose muscles bulged out of their clothes, rodeo stars, and those smooth-cheeked, eyeglassed men who held their children tenderly.  He was all of them.”

    And I jump on board the Kushiel train.

  34. Kimberly Anne says:

    Jumping on the La Nora train.  It wasn’t my first romance, but I fall on the floor every time I even think of this scene from The Heart’s Victory when Foxy is taking a bath: 

    Foxy: I’ve decided to hate you.

    Lance:  Oh? Again?

  35. Ziggy says:

    Sigh. I used to be able to quote whole chunks of P G Wodehouse’s “Summer Moonshine” but the best was always the last line of the book – “The telephone was ringing.” – which doesn’t mean much unless you know the context but it gets me everytime. There’s also a memorable moment where Joe and Jane are in a restaurant – Jane is fed up with Joe’s flirting and leaves. Joe says “Then I shall sit here and howl like a wolf” and then he does until she comes back and sits down again. I love that book.

    Another favourite was from Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. Once again I don’t have the book with me but it’s midway through the book and Vimes and Sybil are parting awkwardly. Vimes leaves the house, thinking that he isn’t going to look back at Sybil standing at the door watching him go. Then he hears the door close quietly behind him, “and he suddenly felt very, very angry, as though he had just been robbed”. Awww.

    And finally a bit of Hardy. I love Far from the Madding Crowd:

    Gabriel looked her long in the face, but the firelight
    being faint there was not much to be seen. “Bathsheba,”
    he said, tenderly and in surprise, and coming closer: “if I only knew one thing—whether you would allow me to love you and win you, and marry you after all—if I only knew that!”
    “But you never will know,” she murmured.
    “Why?”
    “Because you never ask.”

  36. Jody W. says:

    Susan Kearney’s THE CHALLENGE for me had overtones of the Lindsey’s “Ly-San-Ter” series, only the heroine single-handedly revolutionized the hero’s patriarchial society instead of succumbing to it.  I believe Kearney’s novel was written some years ago (perhaps closer to the time of the Lindsey book) and updated for its debut, though I can’t find that factoid written anywhere…maybe it was in a letter to readers in the book?  I dunno.  I made it through two of the Lindsey series—like GrowlyCub, they’re still up in the attic somewhere.  But so are a lot of brown recluses.

  37. alice says:

    Bujold’s Cordelia again:  “The breathtaking beauty of pain”

  38. TracyS says:

    another good line from a favorite of mine~“Nightwatch” by Suzanne Brockmann.  Wes is telling Britt what a truly annoying kid/teen he was and how he exasperated his parents on a regular basis, but oh, his brother (who died young) was perfect etc etc.  she says something to the effect of, “It’s the annoying boys that grow up into the most fascinating men” ahhhhhhh!

  39. Rinna says:

    Ah, the Windflower. Not my first romance novel (I can’t even BEGIN to remember what that was, likely some Candelight Romance I snuck from my mom), but my very favorite romance of all time.

    I can quote large chunks of dialogue, mostly due to the fact that it is a comfort read that I indulge in several times a year if I get to feeling blue. My favorite line? It has to be when Merry is admiring the sea, and Cat says it’s just a bunch of diluted fish piss.  “I mean, if you think of all those fish, and all those centuries….”

  40. Leah says:

    I’m not so original going with Nora Roberts again. And it’s not so much a line as an entire scene.  My all time favorite moment in any Nora book is the sauna scene in Daring to Dream where Candy tries to knock the three women down a peg and ends up getting stuffed in a locker. I particularly love Kate’s reaction to being called a lesbian.

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