Given Voice

It's Monday and all that that implies. One of those implications is that I am tapped out of blogging material. The mind she is goo. As a sometime writer and a constant reader and someone who can't keep her trap shut, voice and tone and dialogue are vital to me. I can come up with nothing interesting to say about myself or my weekend (a social life is still decidedly absent), so I've compiled some excerpts of fantastic dialogue or literary voice from my favorite books that have stuck with me over the years. Enjoy. Or don't. Your choice. -How's it goin', said Jimmy. -Howyeh, Jim, said Outspan. -Howayeh, said Derek. They got stools and formed a little semicircle at the bar. -Been ridin' annything' since I seen yis last? Jimmy asked them. -No way, said Outspan. -We've been much too busy for that sort of thing. Isn't tha righ'? -Yeah, that's righ', said Derek. -Puttin' the finishin' touches to your album? said Jimmy. -Puttin' the finishin' touches to our name, said Outspan. -Wha' are yis now? -And And exclamation mark, righ'? And, said Derek. Jimmy grinned a sneer. -Fuck, fuck, exclamation mark, me. I bet I know who thought o' tha'. -There'll be a little face on the dot, righ', Outspan explained. The Commitments, Roddy Doyle {And if you haven't seen the movie, rent it now. And buy the CD.} Dear God, if Sowell was a house he would look small from the outside, a cottage-sized boy, but if you ever got inside you would find out he had a whole castle in there. He was so much bigger on the inside than on the outside that it was like magic. He had rooms inside him that I bet even he had never entered. There were parts of him he kept locked closed too, just so his life wouldn't be too big to handle, so big he could get lost inside himself, wander for days, for years, looking for the door leading back out to this small real world. As Hot As It Was You Ought to Thank Me, Nanci Kincaid Daddy's gone off again to hunt gators. He says the police might come lookin' for him 'cause of some problem with his ole truck. He says I can hide or not. I'm not gonna hide this time. If they come they'll ax me questions. But I won't know where Daddy is any more than they do. I'll say back in the swamp somewhere, which is close as I can come. They'll go lookin' but they won't find him, not unless he wants to be found. Or unless he gits drunk, which is always possible with Daddy, and he comes roarin' into town raisin' hell. He might run right into the police station and bust up a couple of 'em till they throw him in jail. It sometimes happens that way. That's Daddy for you. Meely LaBauve, Ken Wells -Git tae fuck. We wir here first, Sick Boy sais, opening the taxi door. -Thir's another yin comin. He gestured up the Walk at an advancing black cab. -Lucky fir youse. Smart cunts. -Fuck off, ya plukey-faced wee hing oot. Git a fuckin ride! Sick Boy snarled as we piled intae the taxi. -Tollcross mate, ah sais tae the driver as gob splattered against the side windae. -Square go then smart cunt! C'moan ya crappin bastards! the shell-suit shouted. That taxi driver wisnae amused. He looked a right cunt. Maist ay them do. The stamp-oeyin self-employed ur truly the lowest form of vermin oan god's earth. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh His name was Rayner. First name unknown. By me, at any rate, and therefore, presumably, by you too. I suppose someone, somewhere, must have known his first name -- must have baptised him with it, called him down to breakfast with it, taught him how to spell it -- and someone else must have shouted it across a bar with an offer of a drink, or murmured it during sex, or written it in a box on a life insurance application form. I know they must have done all these things. Just hard to picture, that's all. The Gun Seller, Hugh Laurie So, what character's voice lingers in your head?