I think (ahem) everyone does this. You have favourite books and you quote lines of it to yourself at mundane and pointless parts of everyday life. Lame but fun. Here are a few of mine:
Christmas shopping, trying to get in the door of a very packed shop, seeing a group of loitering teenagers in my way. We look at each other, we both move at the same time, I jump forward and in through the door, my brain echoing with an internal cry of ‘YOU! SHALL! NOT! PASS!’
The electricity went out in my flat last night, and we topped up online. This gives a 20 digit number that you have to go downstairs to enter into the electricity box. Huddled under the duvet in the dark while my SO went downstairs with a torch, I looked up as the light, fridge, heating, TV, lamp and kettle all went on simultaneously and thought ‘Ah! The ringbearer has fulfilled his quest.’
One from years ago, studying Antony and Cleopatra and waking up with the worst hangover I’d ever had: ‘I am dying, Egypt, dying.’
Maybe I should put this in the ‘Weird things you do’ thread…
I frequently ask myself “What would MacGyver do?” when faced with a challenge; this is a reference to a 90s comic about whom I recall nothing save that he was a 30something white dude in a fedora and very funny.
I occasionally find myself thinking “I’m ready for my close-up, DeMille,”* which is not quite as odd as it would be if I didn’t occasionally have to be ready for close-ups. I’ve never actually worked for anyone named DeMille or been in a position to tell a director when to start the take though, and sometimes it spills over into other situations, like meeting people for the first time.
Not a line, but I used to like playing part of the Indiana Jones theme in my head during mundane tasks. The fourth movie kind of killed that for me though.
I know the line from the movie is “All right, Mr. DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up,” but it’s one of those “Play it again, Sam,” things.
ETA: The line is from Sunset Boulevard, and was spoken by an aging glamor queen who had just
Whenever I’m reviewing my plans for any project, large or small, I find this exchange playing in my head:
Valerie: Think it’ll work?
Max: It would take a miracle.
There’s a local wooded are that looks very old, with grey tattered lichen hanging off of trees. When I walk or hike there, I like to pat the trees and repeat the quote “I am not altogether on anyone’s side, because nobody is on my side.”
I always quote, with the deepest voice I can muster, Worf’s “it is a good day to die” whenever I’m doing something that rhymes with die. The applications are nearly limitless.
Sometimes when I drag myself onshore out of Lake Michigan in front of my place, I recite:
“Et Eärello Endorenna utúlien. Sinome maruvan ar Hildinyar tenn’ Ambar-metta!”
('Out of the Great Sea to Middle-earth I am come. In this place I will abide, and my heirs, unto the ending of the world)
Occasionally I’ll have an old line from TV my dad used to say “Jane, you ignorant slut.” He used it a lot. No idea where it’s from.
“Trust me. I know what I’m doing.” And “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue” have been used, as well as too many Ghostbuster quotes.
