“Call me Greg.”
— Moby-Dick
“Yep, that’s me… you’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation…”
— The Metamorphosis
“Life is a highway, I wanna ride it all night long.”
— On the Road
“We slept in what had once been a Planet Fitness.”
— The Handmaid’s Tale
“They used to call him the Good Gatsby, but then…”
— The Great Gatsby
“Remember video games and movies from the ’80s and ’90s? They were pretty cool, right?”
— Ready Player One
“Kids suck.”
— Lord of the Flies
“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is just one empty ice cube tray away from a full-on argument.”
— Anna Karenina
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of an anaconda must be in want of buns, hun.”
— Pride and Prejudice
“MY WIFE!”
— Revolutionary Road
“I know I’m 107 and she’s 17, but she’s a very mature 17.”
— Twilight
“I am a sick man… and if you don’t believe me, watch me land this sick as hell kickflip.”
— Notes from Underground
“‘Harry Potter was a Wiznard— Shoot, I meant wizard.’”
— Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that weird Folgers commercial where it implied the brother and sister were hooking up.”
— One Hundred Years of Solitude
“Okay… but what is that in Celsius?”
— Fahrenheit 451
“Our story begins with a young boy and a lake.”
— The Old Man and the Sea
“There is something at work in my soul which I do not understand, but it may very well be a monster mash, or even a graveyard smash.”
— Frankenstein
“Why don’t you tell me why you think the caged bird sings first, and then I’ll tell you if you’re right?”
— I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
“Everyone knows it takes more than five butchers to run a slaughterhouse, right?”
— Slaughterhouse-Five
“Look, this story is set in 1984, and yes, that means that Winston Smith has a Flock of Seagulls haircut, but it’s really not important to the plot, so I won’t be mentioning it again, okay?”
— 1984
“If you’re seeing this, congrats; you’ve now read more of Infinite Jest than the majority of people that buy the book!”
— Infinite Jest