Familiar Quotations

For the life of me, I can't remember how the subject came up. I was having a conversation, and somehow the topic became the AFI's list of the hundred greatest lines in the history of American cinema. The list itself is ridiculous (Dead Poets Society never belongs on any list of the greatest anythings. You can like that film, or you can like film as an artform. It is impossible to do both.) But that got me to thinking about the nature of quotes.

Like anyone who is utterly obsessed with art and culture, my conversations are often sprinkled with quotes from movies and songs and tv shows and books. (I blame Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino for this). But what makes a quote great? Is it something intrinsic to the quote? My favorite quote from the entire run of the Sopranos is simply "I thought black meant death". By itself, it is not profound, or even interesting. But within the context of the episode, it blows me away. It's from the episode in the third season when Tony's mom dies. (The episode title is the Russian saying that Livia's nurse offers as a toast when she drinks vodka with Tony and Carmela). A.J. is trying to do a close reading of the Robert Frost poem "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening" ("I have promises to keep..."). Meadow tries to help her brother, and offers the interpretation the white snow represents death. A.J. responds by saying "I thought black meant death" (or maybe, "I thought black means death." it's not really important). Earlier in the episode, Tony had one of his panic attacks, apparently brought on by Meadow bringing a boy who is half African-American to the house to watch an old mob movie for a class. Within that context, the line is my favorite thing any Soprano ever said, but I'm not sure if anyone else felt the same way about it, or even noticed it.

Or, take the line from the Venture Bros. that I quote the most. "I met her on the Live Journal". The use of the word "the" before "Live Journal" is kind of funny, I guess, but that doesn't explain why it always makes me smile. The line is only great because of the way that Christopher McCulloch as the Monarch delivers it.

There's a Bob Dylan line I see quoted with a certain frequency (Nick Hornby's novel A Long Way Down is one example that immediately comes to mind) is "To live outside the law you must be honest". It's an interesting line, and one that seems to take on a greater life than the song it comes from- "Absolutely Sweet Marie", off of the Blonde on Blonde album. It's actually a line that is more powerful on its own than it is in the song itself-
"Well, six white horses that you did promise
Were fin'lly delivered down to the penitentiary
But to live outside the law, you must be honest
I know you always say that you agree"

I'm not actually going anywhere further with this. Just something stuck in my head.

Five songs that I'm obsessed with at the moment:
Radiohead- Lucky
Big Star- The Ballad of el Goodo
Tom Waits- Downtown Train
Bruce Springsteen- Magic
Buck 65- Pants on Fire