Great one-liners

[Fist and Faith]

Every book so far has had one or two lines that cracked me up.

GotM

"K'rul came in answer to the child's need and now aids us in our quest. He apologizes to you, Kruppe, for using the world within your dream, but no yonger god can influence this place. Somehow you have made your soul immune to them."

"The rewards of cynicism," Kruppe said, bowing.

And seconds later:

"She strides two worlds," the Rhivi said. "K'rul guides her now into yours. She is frightened still. It falls to you, Kruppe, to welcome her."

Kruppe adjested the sleeves of his faded, threadbare cloak. "This should not prove difficult for one of Kruppe's charms."

DG

"The nuns left but a handful of books. Tomes devoted to pleasuring themselves. Best read in bed, I find."

MoI

Tool appeared, carrying across his shoulders the carcass of a pronghorn antelope, which he shrugged off to thump on the ground.

Toc saw no wounds on the animal. Probably scared it to death.

HoC

"Now, there's actually more than one person within that we need to question. A couple of veterans - leave them to me. There's also a lad, was a guard at a mining camp. Work your charms on him while I'm talking with the other two."

Lostara stared at him. "My charms," she said, deadpan.

[aliantha]

And you can add any conversation with any pair of soldiers to that list....

[lucimay]

and there's totally some laugh out loud stuff in Bonehunters and Reaper's Gale!!!

[Fist and Faith]

Maybe the biggest laugh so far for me. From MT:

"Gothos," Mael rasped, "what ritual do you invoke in answer to this?"

The Jaghut scowled. "They've made a mess. I mean to cleanse it."

"Ice," the Elder god snorted. "The Jaghut answer to everything."

"And what would yours be, Mael? Flood, or...flood?"

[lucimay]

[Holsety]

Kallor said: ‘I walked this land when the T’lan Imass were but children. I have commanded armies a hundred thousand strong. I have spread the fire of my wrath across entire continents, and sat alone upon tall thrones. Do you grasp the meaning of this?’

‘Yes,’ said Caladan Brood, ‘you never learn.’

[Fist and Faith]

[stonemaybe]

Iskaral Prust and Magora...

M: Come near me with intentions other than amorous and I'll stick you.
IP: Amorous. What a horrible thought ---
M: What if I told you I was pregnant?
IP: I'd kill the mule
She leapt at him.


(On a side note: 40 pages earlier - who the hell is Ardata???????)

[aliantha]

Tehol and Bugg, from MT:

T: Just how many undead people are prowling around in this city anyway?
B: Obviously more than we're aware of, master.
T: For all we know, half the population might be undead -- those people on the bridge there, there, those ones with all those shopping baskets in tow, maybe they're undead.
B: Possibly, Master. Do you mean undead literally or figuratively?
T: Oh, yes, there is a difference, isn't there? Sorry, I got carried away. Speaking of which, how are Shurq and Ublala getting along?
B: Swimmingly.
T: Impressively droll, Bugg.

And speaking of Shurq and Ublala:

"I intend to rob Gerun Eberict's estate," Shurq said to Ublala. "But there are outlying watchers that need taking care of. Can you create a diversion, Ublala Pung?"

The huge man scratched his jaw. "I don't know. I got nothing against them --"

"They don't like you."

"They don't? Why?"

"No reason. They just don't."

"Then I don't like them either."

"So you say, but I haven't seen any proof."

"You want proof? Good. Let's go."

[Holsety]

Not exactly one line, but...

Reaper's Gale (only one with me):

*Cord is thinking poetically as he watches ice bergs*
Ebron:A mountain range in its death throes.
Cord: War machines pounding a city wall.
Limp: A frozen storm.
Crump: You all have it wrong. It's like big pieces of ice...falling down.
Shard: That's...simply stunning, Crump. You're a Hood-damned poet. I cannot believe the Mott Irregulars ever let you get away. No, truly, Crump, I cannot believe it.
Crump: Well, it's not like they had any choice. I mean, I left when no one was looking. I used a fish spine to pick the manacles - you can't arrest a High Marshal anyhow. I kept telling them. You can't. It's not allowed.

[Fist and Faith]

A dark shape appeared at Duiker's side, lowered itself into a squat, held silent.

After a while, Duiker said, "A Fist needs his rest."

Coltaine grunted. "And a historian?"

"Never rests."

"We are denied in our needs," the Wickan said.

"It was ever thus."

"Historian, you joke like a Wickan."

"I've made a study of Bult's lack of humor."

"That much is patently clear."

Ah, but this is so much more than a cute exchange. Getting back to this:

I think that it had the best dialogue I've ever read in any book. I just loved it when I'd flip the page, and could tell from scanning all of the paragraph breaks that the next couple of pages (or more) were just going to be dialogue. Erikson comes up with better conversations than anyone I've ever read.

The way we've watched Duiker learn about the Wickans. Truly, in ways, we've watched him become a Wickan. Here we see him joke like one. He couldn't always do that. He wasn't one of them:

"The Fist called you Uncle."

"Aye."

"Well? Are you?"

"Am I what?"

Duiker gave up. He was coming to understand the Wickan sense of humor. No doubt there would be another half a dozen or so brisk exchanges before Bult finally relented with an answer. I could play it through. Or I could let the bastard wait...wait forever, in fact.

He doesn't let the bastards wait any longer. He's not just imitating their humor, but living it. Erikson's brought Duiker, and us!, far.

[Fist and Faith]

"I intend to rob Gerun Eberict's estate," Shurq said to Ublala. "But there are outlying watchers that need taking care of. Can you create a diversion, Ublala Pung?"

The huge man scratched his jaw. "I don't know. I got nothing against them --"

"They don't like you."

"They don't? Why?"

"No reason. They just don't."

"Then I don't like them either."

"So you say, but I haven't seen any proof."

"You want proof? Good. Let's go."

I finally got to this! Jenn had warned me that this was a hilarious book. (An hilarious book?) True enough!! My other favorite moments so far, aside from Gothos and Mael that I posted above:

"What do you want we should eat tonight?"

"Something that needs cooking."

"Would that be something better when cooked, or something that has to be cooked?"

"Either way's fine."

"How about wood?"

"I'm not eating-"

"For the hearth."

"Oh, right. Well, find some."

[While retrieving Shurq from the house of ill-repute.]

"But, you see, I am not so ignorant as you think. Hence my disguise."

She blinked. "Your disguise is to appear as a man in his early thirties, wearing sodden, badly made wool-"

Bugg sat straighter. "Badly made? Now, hold on-"

Tehol nudged his servant with an elbow, hard in the ribs. Bugg grunted, then subsided.

[Onos T'oolan]

Another MT moment that I liked:

Tehol waved and shouted, "Bugg! What are you doing down there? Is this what I pay you for?"

The sodden manservant was looking upward, and he yelled something back that Tehol could not make out. "What? What did you say?"

"You - don't - pay - me!"

"Oh, tell everyone, why don't you!"

But this had got to be the funniest line in all seven books I've read:

The giant was studying Withal in return, and he now asked, "You made this cursed weapon?"

"I did."

The back-handed slap caught Withal by surprise, sent him flying backward. Thumping hard onto his back, staring up at the spinning blue sky - that suddenly filled with the warrior, looking down.

"Don't do it again."

Karsa always cuts right to the heart of issues, doesn't he? What brilliant understatement!

[Farm Ur-Ted]

Just read a great one from Toc in RG; this is a paraphrase (fixed; p. 267):

"Well, the world can go fuck itself."

[Onos T'oolan]

Oh, yeah, that reminds me of one of Fiddler's coming up. Eh, Ali?

[Farm Ur-Ted]

Another great one from Karsa to Samar in RG (p. 521):

"You only pretend to innocence, woman. Take your clothes off."

"If I did, it would only be because you have worn me down. But I won't, because I am tougher than you think. One look at the odious stains your feet have left on that wall is enough to quench any ardour I might-in sudden madness-experience."

"I did not ask you to make love to my feet."

[Farm Ur-Ted]

Random funny line, RG p. 744.

"Might be another army waiting on the walls," Sergeant Thom Tissy had said, making his face twist in his singular expression of disapproval, like a man who'd just swallowed a nacht turd.

[Onos T'oolan]

You're up to 744??? Then you've seen the greatest romance of them all!!!

[Farm Ur-Ted]

You're up to 744??? Then you've seen the greatest romance of them all!!!

Oh, yeah, and let me say this:

Spoiler

There is no question that the greatest romance in this series is the one between Feather Witch and Brys Beddict's finger.

[aliantha]

You guys are sick.