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.

Notable 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