Ask anyone for their favorite movie quotes, and I’m sure they would be hard-pressed to pick just one. Dialog and narration drive a story, and well-written dialog and narration stick with you for a very long time.

Nicholas Sparks released The Notebook in 1996, and it went on to become a movie in 2004. It was Sparks’ first published novel and spent 56 weeks on The New York Times bestseller list. I talked a little bit about this book in The Subtleties Between Love And Grief, and what I always tell people is that the quote on the back cover made me buy the book.

“I am nothing special, of this I am sure. I am a common man with common thoughts and I’ve led a common life. There are no monuments dedicated to me and my name will soon be forgotten, but I’ve loved another with all my heart and soul, and to me, this has always been enough.”

The quote on the back cover did not, however, make me stay up until 4:30 in the morning to finish it. The story did, and the dialog did, and the narration did.

Writers who craft sentences and dialog really well make an impact. I imagine that someone quoting your own words to you couldn’t help but make you feel good. And anyone who feels something deeply when they hear something in a movie, on television, in a book, or in a song also feels an instant connection when someone quotes that same material.

Some of My Favorites

From Up Close and Personal, Tally Atwater (played by Michelle Pfeiffer) tells her love interest Warren Justice (played by Robert Redford) that she thinks they should get married, and he asks her why.
Tally: I want you around in the morning.
Warren: You already have me around in the morning. How, I don’t know, but you do.
Tally: I want to know you’re legally required to be there.

From When Harry Met Sally, Billy Crystal’s Harry shows up in jeans and a sweater to a fancy New Year’s Eve party:
Harry: I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.

And they don’t have to be romantic comedies either. In fact, sometimes the most dramatic scenes are the most memorable.

From Grey’s Anatomy, Season 16, Episode 8 (if you haven’t seen it and you want to, skip this paragraph):

***SPOILERS*** SPOILERS***SPOILERS***

Meredith (played by Ellen Pompeo): You don’t get to sit up there and ask questions about my daughter. If you want to take my license and make sure I never see another patient again, then you do that. But you have absolutely no right to ever mention my daughter’s name because you are the one who killed her father. You don’t remember me, but I remember you. As the coward who stood over my dying husband, the love of my life, and you didn’t even attempt to do burr holes…after he failed to get him a head CT. Burr holes! I was doing burr holes as an intern! That one night should have cost you your entire career, but instead you’re sitting up here judging me? You don’t deserve to judge anyone.

And any blog about movie quotes wouldn’t be complete without this exchange from A Few Good Men, where Tom Cruise’s Lt. Kaffee questions Jack Nicholson’s Col. Jessup on the witness stand:
Kaffee: Colonel Jessup, did you order the Code Red?!
Judge: You don’t have to answer that question!
Jessup: I’ll answer the question. You want answers?
Kaffee: I think I’m entitled!
Jessup: You want answers?!
Kaffee: I want the truth!
Jessup: You can’t handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who’s gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for Santiago and you curse the Marines. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know, that Santiago’s death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives! You don’t want the truth, because deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties, you want me on that wall. You need me on that wall. We use words like “honor,” “code,” “loyalty.” We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said “thank you,” and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you are entitled to!
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?
Jessup: I did the job that–
Kaffee: Did you order the Code Red?!!
Jessup: YOU’RE GODDAMN RIGHT I DID!!

Oof!

A few months back, I saw a Facebook post from Liz Talley, an author who I follow who paraphrased Julia Roberts as Anna Scott’s character in Notting Hill when she posted: “Just a girl, standing in front of her reader friends, asking for them to love her…books enough to review them.” She had just released her latest novel, which was kind of a sequel to a previous novel.

I enjoyed Talley’s Adulting when I read it last year (The Mitochondria Are The Powerhouse Of The Cell), so I immediately downloaded both of her latest books. The first of the two is reviewed below. It’s a fun and quick read, and I hope you enjoy it just as much as I did.

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Book Review

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
5 Stars for Deconstructed by Liz Talley

331 pages
Publisher: Montlake
Publication Date: February 1, 2022
Purchased on Amazon.

Publisher’s Description

Antique-store owner Cricket Crosby’s life is turned upside down when she discovers that the rumors of her husband’s affair aren’t just leisurely southern gossip. Her plan: hire an investigator; find an attorney; enlist the help of her new assistant, Ruby; and make her husband pay.

Ruby knows how quickly everything changes. After a dicey past, she’s determined to forge a new future by working for Cricket and reinventing herself as a designer, deconstructing vintage haute couture. If anybody can help mend a few tears in Cricket’s life, she can.

But turns out Cricket’s life isn’t just a little torn. It’s wrinkled, stained, and falling apart at the seams. With Ruby and her ragtag relatives—a soused PI and a hunky tow truck driver—Cricket is sleuthing her way to the truth, no matter how dangerous it gets.

Sure, Cricket’s life isn’t what she imagined. But she’s embracing change and figuring out what she really wants. And that’s kind of fabulous.

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Main Characters:

• Cricket Crosby – full name Catherine Ann Crosby, 42 years old, married to Scott, mother to 13-year-old Julia Kate, owner of antique store Printemps that she inherited from her grandmother
• Ruby Balthazar – 28-year-old assistant at Printemps, taking business classes at the local college, did a two-year stint at a women’s correctional facility
• Juke Jefferson – Ruby’s cousin, former police officer, works as a private investigator
• Griffin Moon – Ruby’s cousin, owns Blue Moon Towing Company

This book was so…much…fun!

Cricket is a well-off Southern shop owner with a cheating husband, a judgmental mother, a teenage daughter, and an assistant with some seriously questionable family history and a talent for taking apart vintage clothing and creating something new. When we meet Cricket, she overhears two women talking in the shop about how her husband Scott must be cheating on her with their daughter’s tennis coach. Shocked, she decides she needs to do some snooping.

Ruby has a checkered past but loves working with Cricket because it allows her to pilfer the clothing that they can’t sell in the shop and create things she’s passionate about. When Cricket goes home to snoop, Ruby knows something is wrong, but Cricket tells Ruby that the chicken salad didn’t agree with her. After Scott calls the shop looking for Cricket and Ruby hears a woman giggling in the background, she knows, as she says, that Scott is “doing [her] sweet boss ten kinds of wrong.”

Five days later, the two of them are staked out near the mistress’s house, and chaos ensues. Cricket thinks she’s going to get the goods on Scott, but she definitely is not an investigator. One flat tire and an underhanded investigator later, and Rudy enlists the help of her family, Griff and Juke.

The investigation isn’t all smooth sailing from here. The chaos continues, and I certainly enjoyed the ride. The story alternates chapters between Cricket and Ruby. The author does a great job giving each their own voice, and I love the way they began to embrace the personality traits of one another. Cricket starts to let loose and Ruby is the one to pull in the reins. And they develop such an amazing friendship through their antics.

I also couldn’t get enough of the dialogue and the narration.

• “…I would have had to contract three stomach viruses and live on a diet of lettuce for five months to fit into it, and no dress is worth a life without Girl Scout cookies.”
• “I had driven my poor cousin Ronda nuts when we had stayed with Auntie Kay one summer, imagining every bottle cap to be a clue and seeing burglars dangling in trees (just Spanish moss and an active imagination). Ronda grew up to be a mental health counselor. I had no doubt driven her to it.”
• “Dusting was such a belittling task. Because the next day dust would reappear like a bad blind date ignoring your polite rejection and doing what it wanted anyway.”

The author mentions in the acknowledgements that Cricket and Ruby “were a hoot to write!” They were a hoot to read too, so I am thrilled there’s a second installment of the “Cricket Crosby Caper” series. I’ll be reviewing that one next. 😉

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