Well before the movie Yesterday I had the idea to use time travel to go back and steal one song from every renowned songwriter. Would Bob Dylan be any less of a genius if I stole Don’t Think Twice, It’s allright? Or Joni Mitchell if I “borrowed” Really good for free? Maybe slide over to John and Paul and requisition If I fell in love with you?
Alas this idea was thwarted by both no time travel and my complete lack of musical ability (a friend once described me tuning a guitar as “painful”). So, onto plan B – what if I pilfered a line or two from some great authors? Same thinking, wouldn’t detract from their genius and I could just sprinkle them into my writing. Here are some canddates:
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield
The opening line to David Copperfield. And, if the objective of the first line of a novel is to get you to read the second line, pretty much the perfect example. I can visualize someone reading this for the first time and reacting with “Okay, let’s go.”
I once tried for days to paraphrase this opening. Finally, late in the evening of the third day, I came up with the perfect paraphrase. I went to bed that night knowing I was going to hit the ground running the next morning. When I woke up I looked and I had rewritten this opening, word for word. Damn Dickens.
Reader, I married him, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
Jane staring, steely-eyed, directly at the reader. This is so singular a four word sentence that you can’t even consider stealing it. Parody it, maybe (“Reader, I buried him.”).
If time travel existed, a better use for it might be to go travel back to Yorkshire England in 1830 or so and revel in the magic that led to two sisters, neither of which made it to forty, writing Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
Your job, throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself, Glennon Doyle, Untamed
I could see this concept driving an entire novel. Especially since many novels go the other “Carpe Diem, YOLO” route. I particularly like the palindromic nature of the back half of this sentence, with the two disappoints as opposite ends of a seesaw. Definite touches of zen tool
It’s from a memoir by Glennon Doyle.
We finished last with you, we can finish last without you, Branch Rickey
My favorite baseball quote of all time. Possibly apocryphal, it is Branch Rickey‘s response when Ralph Kiner (with the last place Pittsburgh Pirates) asked for a raise after leading the league in home runs.
More than a sentence, it’s a whole attitude.
“Shut up,” he explained. Ring Larder, The Memoir of a Blacklisted Kid
This is from Ring Lardner in 1920. The big trouble with this one is that it would be hard to steal just once, and not go back to it over and over. Given the world today, maybe if he had written in in 2020 it would be “Shut up,” she explained. The date of this line led me to wonder if Ring Lardner was part of the Algonquin Round Table, but he wasn’t. Possibly because he was based out of Chicago and not New York.
Expertise is something different from genius. Expertise is achieved through diligence applied over time. Genius is born. Expertise is raised. John Warner
Is there a more overused word than genius? (well, possibly like). This quote is from non-fiction author John Warner. I’d extend it even further – he seems to imply genius is just beyond expertise. I’d argue than they’re actually parallel paths and that neither is anything without diligence. Might make an interesting story, along the lines of Sherlock Holmes (expertise through diligence) as opposed to Mycroft Holmes (genius but without the diligence).
