Have you ever seen or read some work of fiction where one character gives another a piece of advice, and you think: “Hey, that’s not such bad advice.”?
My example (mild spoiler):
In the tv-series The Shield, Julien, who is about to be married, is sharing a car with Acerveda, who has been married for years. The following dialogue takes place:
Julien: Anything I should know going in?
Acerveda: Secrets. Don’t have them. That one thing you think she can’t possibly know about is the one thing that will come back and haunt you.
Thats actually pretty sound advice. Does anyone have other examples of this?
If songs count as fiction, I think “Don’t eat the yellow snow!” by Frank Zappa should be nominated.
As for proper works of fiction, I dunno, but Osmond’s ‘mentor’ character’s last words (before he dies; we ironically learn, later, that he was stabbed to death) to the protagonist were “Keep your knife sharp, but your wit sharper.” (In “The Twilight, Fading”)
Isosleepy, you beat me to it. My dad, artistic cretin that he is, used to quote this line to me when I was a kid. And now I fulfill my paternal duty by quoting it often to my daughter.
Often.
Polonius’ advice to Laertes in Hamlet is pretty damn good, especially considering how much of an idiot Polonius is. You know, the speech where he says to be true to yourself, dress well, neither a borrower nor a lender be, etc.
Aral Vorkosigan : “Honor is what you know about yourself, reputation is what others believe about you. Being praised to the skies while your honor lies shattered at your feet; that is soul destroying. The other way round is merely very, very irritating.”
Loki : “What is the use of being master of all I survey, if all I survey is a burnt out cinder ?”
Kirk : “Why does God need a starship ?”
Lady Anna, Great Sorceress,* Spellsong Cycle* : “People who believe in the rights of the strong over the weak forget that only one can be the strongest.”
Tanito, The Forever Drug : “A martial artist who doesn’t know how to use modern weapons is a cripple.”
Random Outcast to Tsoo, City of Heros game : “He who lives by the sword gets shot by him who don’t.”
The coach in Teen Wolf gives some great advice. As I remember it:
It’s not how you play the game, it’s whether you win or lose. And even that doesn’t make all that much difference.
I have three tips. Never get less than 12 hours of sleep a day. Never play cards with a guy who has the same name as a city. And never go near a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.
The last two seem to be things he learned the hard way.
‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.’