The Classic Quotations Thread

[Aaron Kashtan]

I don't know from alliteration or simile, but if you lazy little loafers don't get to school, I'll peel you like spuds!

--Donald to the three nephews. From "Metaphorically Spanking," Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #531, dialogue by Don Rosa.

[Aaron Kashtan]

You'll never know how happy your decision made me! ... Well, yes, you will.

--Sharon Carter on Steve Rogers's decision to quit being Cap. From Captain America #178, dialogue by Steve Englehart.

[Aaron Kashtan]

When MJ asks Peter why he's accepting money to act as a mobster's bodyguard, Peter explains:

It'll take me a while until I can afford to get a new apartment big enough for both of us on a teacher's salary, and get you out of this-- five-star hotel the Manhattan Register is giving you while you're here shooting their cover.

From Amazing Spider-Man #52 (493), dialogue by J. Michael Straczynski.

[Aaron Kashtan]

SUPERMAN: Who'd you expect after you set off your signal watch-- George Foreman?
CAPTION: But in the time it has taken the Man of Steel to deliver a bad line [...]

--An example of why I really like Elliot S! Maggin's prose style. From Superman #274.

[Aaron Kashtan]

BLASTAAR: Blastaar is supreme! Blastaar is all-powerful! I will not let mere humans defeat me! I will not let you... let you... [smiles evilly]... !... I will not let you hurl the [Cosmic] Control Rod into the atomic disintegrator!
SUE: ...Atomic disintegrator...?
BLASTAAR: Yes! I see now that is your goal! Stealing the rod, using it against me, these are not enough! You mean to annihilate it!
JOHNNY: [taking rod from Sue] By tossing it in there? Hey, thanks a bunch, Blastie! You do have a way of making life easier!
SUE: Johnny! Johnny, wait! I don't trust...
JOHNNY: What's to trust, sis? If big bad Blastaar is that eager to stop us tossin' his toy in there... then in it goes!
BLASTAAR: Ha ha! Ha ha ha ha! Fool! Fool of a fool! You have signed your own death warrant!

--Johnny has done some pretty stupid things, but this one-- following the instructions of a villain, when a five-year-old child could have seen that the villain was trying to trick him-- really takes the cake. From Fantastic Four #289, dialogue by John Byrne.

[Aaron Kashtan]

Mr. Stark isn't here now. He's off at some drinkin' party.

--Kevin O'Brien, answering Marianne Rogers's phone call for Tony. From Iron Man #40, dialogue by Merry Gerry Conway.

(Tony was actually not at a party, and anyway, I suspect that "drinkin'" might be meant as a term of intensification, and not in the literal sense. Still, at one point in Tony's career, a "drinkin' party" would have been a likely place to find him.)

[Aaron Kashtan]

CAPTION: Clea sinks to the floor, still warmed by the afterglow of love.
CLEA: He is so much a man, little rabbit... so much.

--Yes, this was actually approved by the Code in 1974. From Dr. Strange #1, script by Steve Englehart.

[benday-dot]

What a fortuitous coincidence Sir Tim. Because everytime I happen to be thumbing through my Doctor Strange comics, which happens with great frequency, since in all their vicissitudes, I seem to have more of his titles than any others, I cannot help but go the next step and pull this issue from which you quote, open it up, and feast on its pages all over again. So I found myself just this past weekend casually encountering your quotation once more.

And yeah, my thoughts were your thoughts.... Sometimes Englehart seemed on occasion a little too caught up in the heat of his 70's tantric love trip thing, and managed to slip a dubious phrase or two past the comic watchdogs.

Such might have been the case here with his evocation of Clea's post coital bliss. Anyway the line you quote always made me fall rather heavily for Strange's sexy disciple. But I've probably said too much already.:o

[Aaron Kashtan]

And yeah, my thoughts were your thoughts.... Sometimes Englehart seemed on occasion a little too caught up in the heat of his 70's tantric love trip thing, and managed to slip a dubious phrase or two past the comic watchdogs.

He wasn't the only one... see this post from earlier in this thread.

By coincidence, I was just reading the Wikipedia article about Lady and the Tramp. According to Wikipedia, this was Disney's only animated movie to feature a suggested sex scene, and it came out when the Hays Code was still in effect. Apparently the suggested sex was permitted because the characters involved were dogs. :)

[Aaron Kashtan]

The assumption that human beings will always follow out the logic of their character to the limit is one of the worst elements in the comic books, and is pretty widespread in them. If a man is a burglar, he will not hesitate to commit murder; and if he is going to commit murder, he is often as likely to think of boiling his victim in oil as of shooting him. [...] This kind of "logic" may seem very proper to children. When [my son] Paul was about four or five, a baby-sitter read him the story of Bluebeard. I was a little disturbed when he mentioned this to me the next morning and I tried to probe his reactions.

I said something like "An exciting story, eh?"

"Oh, yes," said Paul.

"That Bluebeard was quite a nasty character, wasn't he?" I said.

"Oh, I don't know," said Paul.

"What do you mean you don't know? Didn't he try to murder his wife?"

"Well," said Paul, "he told her not to look in that closet."

--From Robert Warshow's article "Paul, the Horror Comics, and Dr. Wertham," from the June 1954 issue of Commentary.

[Aaron Kashtan]

What in the name of Marx and Lenin--?

--A crewman on a Soviet submarine. From Sub-Mariner #25, dialogue by Roy the Boy.

[Aaron Kashtan]

CAPTION: Elsewhere in the vast citadel, a rendezvous... Dream Girl and Star Boy...
DREAM GIRL: What do you feel like doing tonight, Thom?
STAR BOY: You don't need your future-forecasting power to figure out the answer to that one, Nura!

(Next panel: Cosmic Boy is on monitor duty. Sun Boy enters the room.)

SUN BOY: How're things going?
COSMIC BOY: Hey there, Sun Boy! According to these monitors, couldn't be duller!

(Next panel: The monitor shows Thom and Nura making out.)

SUN BOY: Hey-hey-hey, Cosmic Boy! Things are looking up on screen #3!
COSMIC BOY: Guess they don't know they're on-camera...

--Teenage sexual activity and voyeurism, all in a wholesome Code-approved comic from 1976! From Superboy #218, dialogue by Cary Bates.

[ACertainMrDoe]

I just finished reading X-Men issue #108 in Marvel Essential X-Men.
This issue is pencilled by John Byrne.

At the bottom of the last panel, there is the inscription:

"This book is dedicated with respect and admiration to Dave Cockrum -- Who helped make the dream a reality."
And below:
"I'm not dead -- Dave Cockrum"

How utterly true. People like him never die.

[Aaron Kashtan]

DUKE: ...And call the labor ministry. We're going to need scabs to serve lunch after the [Baby Doc College of Physicians graduation] ceremony.
HONEY: That won't be necessary, sir. I settled the kitchen worker strike last night.
DUKE: You did? Now, that's the best news I've had all week! Good work, Honey!
HONEY: Thank you, sir. I wonder if you'd like to go through the list of today's honorary degree recipients.
DUKE: Sure, why not? Let's see... Paul Lumiere. Jean Genot. Pierre Berger. Adrienne D'Arcy. Impressive line-up, Honey!
HONEY: Yes, sir.
DUKE: Who the hell are they?
HONEY: The kitchen staff.

--From an '80s Doonesbury strip. Dialogue by Garry Trudeau.

[Jake Lockley]

Vision: Your time has come, Janet van Dyne! And there is nothing you can do... to stay your fate!

Wasp: No--No! It's some sort of unearthly, inhuman vision! And that voice... like something from beyond the grave!

From Avengers #57, the Vision's debut scripted by the Rascally One.