# What is the greatest sentence you have read or heard ? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2014, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598 "2014-01-12T18:47:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bellhorn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Bellhorn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bellhorn)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/42 "2014-01-15T16:15:26Z")
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” (Also quoted as “Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”) Peter Drucker Great quote to throw at your boss, when he’s chewing you out for not following his instruction. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/43 "2014-01-15T16:23:47Z")
“What is the greatest sentence you have read or heard ?” **Lantern** ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/44 "2014-01-15T16:27:39Z")
Not the best, but pretty good: You fit into me like a hook into an eye a fish hook an open eye - Margaret Atwood. ---
**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/45 "2014-01-15T16:27:39Z")
“To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.” –Albus Dumbledore (J. K. Rowling) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/46 "2014-01-15T16:41:31Z")
“The building was on fire, and it wasn’t my fault.” Blood Rites, number 6 in the Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher. Not an inspiration for all time, but the most perfect hook of a first sentence that I’ve ever seen. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/47 "2014-01-15T16:49:44Z")
Not a single sentence, but truly one of the most notable in all of SF: > [@](#): > > I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe… [laughs] Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those… moments… will be lost in time, like [coughs] tears… in… rain. Time… to die… ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/48 "2014-01-15T16:56:45Z")
“Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.” The Brits: Arrogant, pigheaded, class-bound. And yet I still get teary-eyed when I read that sentence. For all their faults, they saved Western civilization. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/49 "2014-01-15T17:34:12Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > The opening line to a Tale of Two Cities. The first clause is often quoted, the rest of it often forgotten. You left a bit off: > [@](#): > > It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. ---
**Author:** ![CurrlyD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CurrlyD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurrlyD)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/50 "2014-01-15T17:35:00Z")
"I will do my best to give thanks for gifts, strangely, beautifully, painfully wrapped. " Viviane Abbot Walker in _Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood_ by Rebecca Wells ---
**Author:** ![Purd\_Werfect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e47c2d/32.png) [@Purd\_Werfect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Purd_Werfect)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/51 "2014-01-15T17:35:40Z")
“I think one must finally take one’s life in one’s arms.” - Arthur Miller ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/52 "2014-01-15T17:37:47Z")
I’m also fond of the opening sentence of Stephen King’s _ **The Gunslinger** _: The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. Simple, yet remarkably evocative. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/53 "2014-01-15T17:39:36Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > You left a bit off: I guess I’m as guilty as the rest. I don’t have a copy on hand, took the sentence from an online source. Sentences of this type, decribing the world in contradictory terms seem to be common. I wonder if Dickens started it all with that line. ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/54 "2014-01-15T17:58:39Z")
> [@](#): > > It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents—except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/55 "2014-01-15T21:24:44Z")
> [@](#): > > She breathed on him (though a young lady should not eat, because of the known redolence of onions, onions) onions. Anthony Burgess, from _Enderby Outside_. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/56 "2014-01-15T22:10:10Z")
More of a headline than a sentence, but I would like to embroider it on a pillow: [I did not cut my baby’s umbilical cord for six days so we could have a natural “lotus birth” just like chimpanzees](http://www.xojane.com/healthy/how-to-lotus-birth). Close runner up: Other animals chew the cord off shortly after birth, but as a vegan, this option did not appeal to me. ---
**Author:** ![RadioWave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/91b2a8/32.png) [@RadioWave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RadioWave)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/57 "2014-01-15T22:38:31Z")
“Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs, starr’d the Sides of Outbuildings, as of Cousins, carried Hats away into the brisk Wind off Delaware,-- the Sleds are brought in and their Runners carefully dried and greased, shoes deposited in the back Hall, a stocking’d-foot Descent made upon the great Kitchen, in a purposeful Dither since Morning, punctuated by the ringing Lids of Boilers and Stewing-Pots, fragrant with Pie-Spices, peel’d Fruits, Suet, heated Sugar,-- the Children, having all upon the Fly, among rhythmic slaps of Batter and Spoon, coax’d and stolen what they might, proceed, as upon each afternoon all this snowy December, to a comfortable Room at the rear of the House, years since given over to their carefree Assaults.” - Thomas Pynchon, _Mason and Dixon_ ---
**Author:** ![epolo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b487fb/32.png) [@epolo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epolo)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/58 "2014-01-15T22:41:35Z")
Two pages and no St. Crispin’s Day? “This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered- We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now-a-bed Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.” ---
**Author:** ![HyacinthBucket](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hyacinthbucket/32/3063_2.png) [@HyacinthBucket](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HyacinthBucket)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/59 "2014-01-15T22:51:11Z")
“Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.” Herman Melville, from _Moby-Dick_ I know the feeling 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/bc8723/32.png) [@Unauthorized\_Cinnamon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Unauthorized_Cinnamon)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2014, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/60 "2014-01-15T23:24:28Z")
> [@LawMonkey](#): > > I’m also fond of the opening sentence of Stephen King’s _ **The Gunslinger** _: The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. > > Simple, yet remarkably evocative. Agreed - it’s a great hook. Y’all know what I’m going to suggest, right? > [@H.P. Lovecraft](#): > > The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. How can you not read on, with some trepidation, after reading that? ---
**Author:** ![Just1Lurk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c0e974/32.png) [@Just1Lurk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just1Lurk)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598/61 "2014-01-16T00:03:16Z")
I don’t remember which Discworld book it’s from, but I can’t forget this Terry Pratchett opening line: “In the beginning there was nothing, which exploded.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-greatest-sentence-you-have-read-or-heard/678598.md?page=4)