The Remains of a Poet

Day 20: A favorite quote

So difficult! I have many, obviously. The twins, Ron, and Harry all have several great one-liners, of course. Then there’s Dumbledore’s words of wisdom/moments of awesome. McGonagall and Snape are also both extremely quotable. Then there’s all the little moments of wonderful characterization for Sirius and Remus, particularly in the Shrieking Shack scene (“If you made a better rat than a human, it’s not much to boast about, Peter,” for example). But I’m going to go with the line that always stayed with me from Deathly Hallows:

“Does it hurt?”

The childish question had fallen from Harry’s lips before he could stop it.

“Dying? Not at all,” said Sirius. “Quicker and easier than falling asleep.”

“And he will want it to be quick. He wants it over,” said Lupin.

First of all, arguably the most moving, heartbreaking, emotional scene in the whole series. Harry here. Just … Harry.

But also, okay, I guess this does kind of have to do with the characterization thing (characterization is a big thing for me) because, just, I love that it’s Sirius and Remus answering Harry here, not James and Lily. Because even though we know they love Harry and Harry loves them, Sirius and Remus are the ones who ended up being there for him, and they’re the ones Harry trusts. Like, I don’t think James and Lily even could have answered this question for Harry. It had to be Sirius. And actually, if you read this whole scene, you can see that. James and Lily assure Harry they love him, but any concrete question is answered by Sirius and Remus, and I think it’s because Harry knows them. He trusts them. And I just really like that.

So I downloaded a bunch of Christmas music over the weekend, and my roommate hung up Christmas lights, and yesterday it rained and I turned off our room light and turned on the Christmas lights and sat on my bed and drank hot chocolate and wrote a Christmas story.  Well, that I was my plan, anyway.  What actually happened was I got about a paragraph into my story and then one of the other girls came in and somehow I got suckered into watching The Notebook for the first time.  I thought it was a huge waste of 123 minutes of my life, which apparently means I am a horrible person and hate love and will die miserable and alone.  Which I am actually totally fine with if it means I don't have to lay on greasy asphalt, or have sex (or almost have sex or whatever it is they even do in that scene) in a dirty, dusty, rotting house, or spend seven years crying and angsting and getting drunk and leading perfectly nice people on because I am pathetic and cannot get over it, dear GOD, people, it's been SEVEN YEARS, MOVE ON ALREADY!  So yes, my plans were rather thrown off.

I also read Six Characters in Search of an Author which is a really fantastic play and one I recommend to anyone who writes fiction.  A few quotes that exemplify this brilliance:

"A character, sir, may always ask a man who he is.  Because a character has a life which is truly his, marked with his own special characteristics. ... And as a result he is always somebody!  Whilst a man ... in general ... can quite well be nobody."

PRODUCER: And so you'd say that you and this play of yours that you've been putting on for my benefit are more real than I am?
FATHER: Oh, without a doubt. ... If your reality can change from one day to the next....
PRODUCER: But everybody knows that it can change like that!  It's always changing. ... Just like everybody else's!
FATHER: No, ours doesn't change!  You see, that's that difference between us!  Our reality doesn't change. It can't change. It can never be in any way different from what it is. Because it is already fixed. Just as it is. Forever!  Forever it is this reality. It's terrible! This immutable reality.  It should make you shudder to come near us!

"Authors usually hide the details of their work of creation.  Once the characters are alive ... once they are standing truly alive before their author ... he does nothing but follow the words and gestures that they suggest to him.  And he must want them to be what they themselves want to be.  For woe betide him if he doesn't do what they wish him to do!  When a character is born he immediately acquires such an independence ... even of his own author ... that everyone can imagine him in a whole host of situations in which his author never thought of placing him.  They can even imagine his acquiring, sometimes, a significance that the author never dreamt of giving him."

And the last one kind of makes me go, "Oh god, I hope fanfic-ers don't get their hands on this."  But seriously, aren't they brilliant?

“Living’s heavy work, but off to one side, the way we are, it’s useless, too. It don’t make sense. If I knowed how to climb back on the wheel, I’d do it in a minute. You can’t have living without dying. So you can’t call it living, what we got. We just are, we just be, like rocks beside the road. … I want to grow again, … and change. And if that means I got to move on at the end of it, then I want that, too.” ~ Tuck

~ Tuck Everlasting ~

"A woman will judge another woman before she even gets a chance to speak.  'Oh, I hate her!'  'Why?'  'I just do!  I just hate her.'  The female dynamic is fascinating.  You will never meet another group of people who are so competitive over nothing." ~ Michael Campbell

• You guys spend too much time with SquareBob! ~ Dr. Smith

• I play games with myself and surprise myself! ~ Dr. Anderson (and he was talking about mind games, but still!)
  

• The majority of adults in the U.S. suffer from lower back pain.  So you want to have really strong abs to prevent that. ... But I work out all the time, and I had to have back surgery this summer. ~ Dr. Anderson

• ... but there are a lot of other factors, and that doesn't always work. ~ Dr. Anderson, after giving a long explanation about how to prevent heart failure or whatever

• You guys know I try to be really sensitive when I talk to people.  So I say to [my 300 pound friend], "Jim, I'm not going to play basketball with you anymore unless you go to a doctor, because I don't want to have to give you CPR." ~ Dr. Anderson
  

• Trinity: I named my professors after characters on Lost.
  Lena: You should make Dr. Anderson an Other!
  Trinity: I can't, I made Dr. Bowles an Other.
  Lena: WHY?
  Trinity: Because he looks like an Other.
  Lena: He also looks like the Easter Bunny, but we don't go around expecting to get chocolate from him!

• I know!  You could name your professors after characters in Pirates!  And Dr. Anderson could be Barbossa: all he wants is an apple! ~ Camryn

Our lives become so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that we become more and more like them and less and less like ourselves.

...

I am not defined by what I am not.  And understanding this truth is a huge part of becoming whole.  I [need] to stop living in reaction and start letting a vision for what lies ahead pull me forward.

...

[My] job is the relentless pursuit of who God has made [me] to be.  And anything else [I] do is sin and [I] need to repent of it.


~ Rob Bell ~
~ Velvet Elvis ~

Okay, so I love Mugglenet.  And Leaky.  Like, a lot.  They fully made my day!

“We tried. We denied it for months, we saw other people, we split our lives after Edinburgh in hopes it would all fade into a Scottish fairy tale.
Alas, it wasn’t to be so; true love overcomes such bonds.... Last week, on the cobblestoned slope of Edinburgh Castle - the site of Emerson’s now-famous shoe-carrying gesture, the one that stole Melissa’s heart away for good - we made it official.”

*dies laughing*

They’re so awesome!