That One Perfect Line!

We all have our favorite lines -- ones that encapsulates the entire theme of the book into one fantastically written sentence.  If you are like me, then you find them rattling around in your head for weeks, months, even years after you've read the book.

“Because this is what happens when you try to run from the past. It just doesn’t catch up, it overtakes … blotting out the future.” ~Sarah Dressen, JUST LISTEN


“Scars have the strange power to remind us that our past is real.”  ~Cormac McCarthy, ALL THE PRETTY HORSES


"It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."  ~George Orwell, 1984


“The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”   ~John Green, LOOKING FOR ALASKA

It's easy to point to these out in other people's work.  As writers we appreciate, even savor that truly awe-inspiring sentence and find ourselves dumbfounded by the profound depth they convey. What I challenge you to do is look at your own work and find that one sentence that brings your character, your tone, your entire manuscript to life.  I guarantee it's in there, that awe-inspiring sentence that has you saying "Shit . .  I wrote that?"  Then share it here for the rest of us to marvel over!  And as encouragement, I wil throw myself out there with some of my own lines.

 "The darkness would've scared me years ago, but not anymore.  If you couldn't see it, then you didn't know it was there to be afraid of."  ~SILO

"I knew that look in his eyes, knew it had nothing to do with pity or even anger.  It was haunted hope -- that shaky belief that I'd be alright when every experience he'd ever had screamed otherwise." ~ INSIDE OUT 

 "It took me a few minutes, but I finally grasped what this tiny dark room actually was – one fucked up way of sending a naughty child into the corner, complete with locks and sensory deprivation." ~LEAVING EDEN