Standout lines in ponyfic

Here's something fun I thought of a few nights ago while trying to go to sleep. I don't remember why. :B

Give to me the memorable lines you have read in MLP fanfiction! First lines, last lines, dialogue, narration, catchphrases: anything that sticks in your mind.

I'm talking about things like "In the darkness, somepony coughed."

What else can you think of? If you can't recall it off the top of your head, it's probably not memorable! :B

Comments

[Guldane]

I think the most memorable single line I've seen recently was Estee's "Celestia vs. Vampires", which consisted entirely of "Good morning, gentlemen."

[DrakeyC]

"I worry what you just heard was “bring Princess Rainbow Dash a lot of different energy drinks. What we said was “bring us all of the energy drinks you have.”

TL;DR - AU fic where all the Mane Six are Princesses and Rainbow Dash is Thor. I remember it for the absurd hilarity, the fic is otherwise rather lame.

[Syntakitty]

"Well, that didn't work." - Spike, from Hard Reset

[PatchworkPoltergeist]

Time passed them by like a rich man passed the poor.

-- House of Gold

The gryphons were not always monsters. That came later.

-- opening lines of The Carnivore's Prayer

Put your boots on," Adams said. "There's a biblical monster in my house.

-- opening lines of Biblical Monsters

Far in the distance, just barely visible from the heart of the Everfree, proud Canterlot juts from the edge of a mountain. It is filled with flowing water, families, and life. It is a dream made real.

The ponies who live there believe it will last forever.

-- Lost Cities

“Little pony. Be grateful that Tirek is a merciful god.” His voice held all the warmth of a glacier, all the love of an avalanche. It was the sound of rocks breaking and trees falling.

-- The Instruments of Our Surrender

[Klamnei]

"You'll be seeing Rain Booms!

Ooo-ooo-oooh!

Equestria Girls, we're kinda magical!

Boots on hooves, bikinis on top!"

The Best Night Ever

[Admiral Biscuit]

“I suppose... I shall miss Sweetie Belle....” Rarity began, leaning her head against Dash's. “Oh, I do hope she remembers to feed Opalesence... she can be so forgetful sometimes.” She sniffed. “Still, a lady meets all things with dignity- even her end.” The snake's head drew higher.

“Shucks, Rarity,” Applejack said with a mirthless chuckle, “there ain't no one to be dignified for, now.”

“That's not true,” Rarity said softly. “There's the two of you.”

It's A Dangerous Business

A pause. “Well, there’s legal, and there’s legal, you know what I mean?”

“Of course.” Another pause. “So... which is it?”

“Well, technically it’s neither.”

The Trouble With Phoenixes

Twilight swallowed hard as she desperately covered herself back up and struggled to resist vanishing off the face of Equestria, because she could think of about a hundred justifications for doing an acrobatic pirouette off the handle right about now.

Purely Scientific Interest (which, interestingly, I'd never admit to having read, so I guess this line just stuck with me out of nowhere.)

Twilight's frown deepened. "Where are you going, Marshall?"

"Bathroom. Because someone put shit in my pants."

Quantum Castaways

der dary

unique

Simply Rarity

[Chris]

"But they didn't." When I first read that line in It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door, it made me want to cheer. After the author got done listing all the ways things could have gone horribly wrong at that moment, to come back with such a simple, understated, humble yet assured rejoinder, was a perfect encapsulation of what made that story great. Still gives me a happy chill thinking about it.

"'I say, Cheese,' I said, to Cheese," from The Rummy Business of Old Blooey, is a first line that I just adore. It's so twee and silly, it's a spot-on introduction to the rest of the fic.

There's "satisfy values through friendship and ponies" from Friendship is Optimal. Granted, that one's easy to remember because they say it a lot, in that story and in the various spinoffs, but it's still a great example of how to write something bone-chilling using nothing but friendly, happy words.

This is hard. There are a bunch of lines I can kinda quote the gist of, and I bet if I looked through a list of fics I read it'd jog my memory for more, but ones where I remember the exact quote, from the exact story, basically off the top of my head? Not a lot of those.

[Matthewl419]

No sword could stay sharp in such heat, so Luna instead pulled from her magic a blade of unbreakable starlight. Without hesitation, she drew it across her foreleg, drawing the silvery ichor that was her blood and watching as it fell into the crucible, mixing with the molten metal within.

-Moonstone

My king stands alone and isolated, much like my queen did at the opening of the game, casting a long shadow in the fiery sunset light. He seems so immensely alone. I reflexively feel empathy and a sense of the familiar.

-Strategic

I exist. In blissful coma. Caught in the twilight between sleep and wakefulness.

-I Wish I Had Met You Yesterday

[kits]

One day blue horse bird was flyin' 'round and stuff.

[iisaw]

I don't usually remember individual lines, but Chris' farewell post in OMPR brought this one to mind. It's a direct result of his First Sentences in (Fan)Fiction series, and opens The Twilight Enigma:

"Rarity!" I screamed, staggering with the effort of resisting the temple's magical deathtraps. "There are more armed zebras coming up the stairs! Can you buy us some time?"

[Vic Fontaine]

Off the top of mind...

Fluttershy shook her head. “No, he’ll die tonight. But he’ll be warm and comfortable. I think that counts for something.” --All the Mortal Remains
---------------------------------
I hear the crash of the bank vault’s doors. I told Money Bags that there’s only half an hour’s air in there, and that it’s important to keep the interior dry, but he always locks himself inside anyway.

I hope he doesn’t damage the books. It’s a very small vault. --Moments
--------------------------------
“I hope you’ve said your farewells.”

“I’ve made my peace.” Celestia stood by Luna’s side. “I’ll stay by your side, and watch this world burn.” --Archmage

[Protopony350]

"We should come back here every single week and mat our laundros!"

[BlazzingInferno]

"This guy looks hungry for a knuckle sandwich, and his order's about up."
- Not In Bluff Nor Bravado Nor Loneliness

"The apples were going rotten."
- The Sunset Room

"When the dark alicorn introduced herself to the Imperial Academy by making a rude hoof gesture at the entire class, Drying Paint knew it was love at first sight."
- Queen of Clubs (virtually any other line from this one is a fair substitute)

"Frog-shaped licorice! The frogs could be made of one flavor of licorice and they could have reaaaaaaalllllllllllllly long tongues made of another flavor of licorice, and you could call it Lickorice!"
- Pinkie Pie Writes a Stern Letter (this one is full-to-bursting with great Pinkie lines)

"The first time we danced, she broke my jaw in three places."
- Daring Do and the Dance

"Twilight glanced up from her tenth piece of unbuttered toast. Since the desolation of Tasty Town, she hadn’t felt like eating anything sweet or savory ever again."
- Secrets Better Left Untold

and all the hooks I listed in this blog post

[Anar Isil]

With all the 'quiet dignity and grace' that I can muster, I walk up to Celestia, and punch her in the face.
-From 'No, I Am NOT a Brony, GET ME OUTTA EQUESTRIA!!!'

[Georg]

The Gathering by Bad Horse

Sisters, come! In the heart of Virgo, we sing the thousand-year death-song for a fading galaxy. We shall gather its embers and bank them in the black hole at its core.

Shipping Sickness by Skywriter

...If I can't find a universe filled with romantic tension... I'll make a universe filled with romantic tension!"

National Geographic Presents Big Princess Week by Cold in Gardez

“Right. Uh, first question.” Twilight cleared her throat. “Why is there a dead zebra in your room?”

Moonlight Palaver by Carabas

“Princess Celestia of Equestria,” announced the guard.

Small Town Charm by Cold in Gardez

“Well, it’s like Granny Smith says. You can let a foal go through life afraid, or you can lock her in a dark room with a thousand spiders until she stops screaming.” Applejack put her basket under another tree and lined up for a kick. “She’s just full of folksy wisdom.”

Lady Prismia and the Princess-Goddess by Skywriter

There is a serpent on my breast, and he is trying to eat my heart.

100% Move = 50% Fire by Estee

"So this is best, really,' Twilight said. "We came to move me out of here. We're moving me and this. Permanently. And there's no going back."

"It's a commitment," Pinkie agreed.

"Gotta get it done," Rainbow said.

"...you have to do it fast so it hurts less," Fluttershy pointed out.

"Just tear an' go," Applejack agreed.

"Because the best direction is forward," Rarity decided. "One more, girls?"

Rainbow checked. "Go for it!"

They pushed.

As it turned out, a piano crashing into the ground after falling that distance made the most distinctively musical sound any of them had ever heard.

The Destruction of the Self by Cold in Gardez

I wake up, and I think I would like to be a farmer today.

I will end this with the prose that the above story triggered:

Perhaps tomorrow I will be a writer.

I am not one today, of course, trapped in an office filled with undone papers and upset customers all demanding my time. At one time I was a farmer, up to my knees in the snow hauling bales of hay for ungrateful cows, but then I became a student, and then a husband, and a father, and an employee. Of all, the husband and father are the best, but at times, I wish for the quiet life in a cabin by the edge of a pond, putting pen to paper while creating a masterpiece that future generations will marvel over and that will allow me to be...

Then my moment of dreaming is over, and the telephone drags me back to my desk. Today I am not a writer. But soon there will be a weekend, and if I am a good husband who weeds the garden, and a good father who takes care of his children's transportation needs, then... I may be a writer, for just a brief while.

[DwarvishPony]

"Power is sexy."

- Love is in Doom

[Cerulean Voice]

Is it okay to put a paragraph? Because I really want to put a paragraph.

Fuggit I'm putting a paragraph

“You stole the world from us! Took our birthright and gave it to those pathetic mortals!”

“I showed MERCY!”

“Mercy?” The wyrm’s eye bulged. “I have seen your mercy all my life, Solashemesh. Instead of eradicating my race, you allowed us to live—in squalor and destitution, fighting each other like animals for scraps of territory when once, we ruled the earth itself. Instead of annihilating the griffons when you destroyed their empire, you forced them into the desert to suffer a long, slow death by starvation! Instead of executing the mad god Discord, you froze him in stone, conscious for all time!” The wyrm’s chest puffed out in rage. “Instead of killing your sister when she threatened the world, you sentenced her to an eternity of isolation and madness, of gnawing hunger and loneliness, an inescapable hell of your design!” He roared. “I have seen your mercy, Solashemesh.”

Merystallistrx, from The Age of Wings and Steel

I guess the last line is really the strongest.

“I have seen your mercy, Solashemesh.”

(Solashemesh is the dragons' name for Celestia)

[Cerulean Voice]

4893810
What makes this one even more awesome and terrifying is that it was later canonised to a degree (I think by the season 5 finale!)

[Russian Bank Teller]

liberal application of glass to the train conductor’s face

-me

[Norm De Plume]

“That’s gross, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash shouted.

“Oh, is it?” Twilight demanded. She slammed the two mugs on the ground, splashing a healthy dose of the Apple-juice and Rainbow-juice on her nice castle floor. “Was that too real for you? You know what else was gross? Literally having to pry the two of you apart with a board because you were basically glued together!”

“Ew!” everyone in the room said.

“Yeah, ‘ew’!” Twilight said, turning to look at the rest of the girls. “I had to singe the bedsheets off them with a blowtorch, so I’m sorry if I’m a little testy!”

-The Thin Line Between Wife & Death

[Icy Shake]

Variants of "shot a biathalete." -- My Harshwhinnial by Horizon

"I had a doctor friend once prescribe me a regimen of pills, and upon the label of the bottle I found a good deal of instructive advice including the phrase 'Keep away from children.' It's a dictate I've attempted to follow rigorously from that day till this."

Noblesse Oblige by Baal Bunny

“The only theory I’ll accept,” I thought bluntly at her. “If we don’t find any proof, then we keep digging till we do. Like with science. And if we still don’t, then we lie till we do.”
“That’s not how science works, Blackjack,” Lacunae told me with an air of infinite patience.
“It’s how the science of friendship works,” I said aloud in my frustration.

Project Horizons by Somber

On which note, I've always loved the ending--the last page kind of has two I'd highlight:

Then, like a pitiful whine in the back of my mind, I heard the Eater’s last whimper, Will it hurt?

And there, on the wreckage of the platform, the mare stared at the stars as the number reached zero. Darkness took her. And silence. Yet her lips curled in a smile as she felt hot liquid rolling down her cheeks. The rumbling grew, becoming her entire world, stretching into eternity.

Also from the first time around:

But I was so tired, and I could see the stars.
They were calling to me.
I let go… relaxed…
And died.

Some good FoE catchphrases since that seems to be the track my mind's on right now:
"I'm not a clever pony," "Sunshine and rainbows," "Ante up," "Do better*," "Security saves ponies," "Red it's dead, yellow be mellow," "Don't think about it," "Hi! I'm Puppysmiles!" "I'm looking for my mom!" "And caring hurts, no matter how you fucking slice it." "Hush now, quiet now..." "I know ponies whose fuckups have killed millions"
*Long form:

You do everything you can to make up for it, knowing that you’ll never succeed in getting rid of the guilt. You devote yourself to spending every second trying to do better despite the fact that it will never be enough. And you pray with every single good act you do that somehow when your life is over that your lifetime will come close to making up for the wrong you committed.

Why did it have to be a retarded filly?

Pink Eyes

Oh, and

"Yeah," Phil said, "she's a ptardis. You didn't know that?"
"I'm bigger on the inside!" Pinkie Pie shouted.
"Hey!" Rainbow stuck her neck out angrily at Phil. "'Course we know. But we don't say it."

The Saga of Dark Demon King Ravenblood Nightblade, Interior Design Alicorn

by Bad Horse, also the title qualifies in itself

Fluttershy was the Element of Kindness -- and it made her the weakest pony in the world.
...
Flitter hated Fluttershy for being the strongest pony in the world.

"Five Hundred Little Murders"

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I get it now. Peaness.”

"Two Peas in a Pod"

[Shachza]

A gleam lit in his eyes. "Do you realize that, according to all our evidence so far, these beings apparently communicate in a completely arbitrary language? Their vocalizations, the syntax, nothing points to either intent or motivation tied to the workings of this world! It's as if they just picked sounds they liked to denote their surroundings!"

From Twilight Makes First Contact.

So much juicy worldbuilding in such a small package!

[Condray]

"You mean I have to be good all the time?
-Sunset Shimmer, Long Road to Friendship

(I started skimming to make sure I got the quote exactly right aaaaand now I'm re-reading it again)

[bookplayer]

Luckily for her cover, the others quickly learned to dismiss any odd behaviour on her part as "Just being Pinkie Pie", and therefore just a part of nature; like the sun being magically lifted up every day, and pegasi orchestrating the weather.

--So Long, and Thanks for all the Ponies, by Sir Ginger

[Thatsnoreason]

"Can you function?"
-In Manifest Destiny by Commisar Carl.
The question after "Are you okay?", if they answered "No".

This line is memorable because the questioner had been the one receiving this inquiry earlier in the story. The alliteration of the situation with different role highlights the character growth really well after all his turmoil and struggle.

[re- Yamsmos]

camo.derpicdn.net/70f908d64698feba9048f7cd14c2542960f3f8c9?url=http%3A%2F%2Fpuu.sh%2Fr87Ug%2F3e89751b71.png

[Cold in Gardez]

I could probably just go through GaPJaxie's canon and find a line from every story that I loved, but here's a recent one from Earth Ponies:

There were three of them. Two were bare. One wore a saddle made of the aurora, and a crown whose jewels were frozen tears. It was said she was a true oracle, who knew the names of every pony who would die in the cold.

[Ice Star]

There’s too manyyy D:

[FanOfMostEverything]

For a number of reasons, the last line of A Mark of Appeal sticks out in my mind, not least because Estee apparently wrote it years before the last chapter was published.

"Good night, Crater-Ass."

Hey, you just asked for memorable lines.

[Shakespearicles]

"Hey, nopony hurts my Twilight," Dash said.

"Hey, I'm not your Twilight," Twilight said defiantly. Rainbow Dash answered by licking her cheek. "Wha!? What was that for!"

"I licked you. So now you're mine," Dash explained.

"I'M NOT A COOKIE!"

- Regicide Squares

[PresentPerfect]

Keep 'em comin', folks, this has been great so far. :D

Let's not forget "And then the magic happened in her horn."

"Why is everything bigger and eight?"

and I really wish I could remember the line about the crunchy potato chips :B

4893814
Ohh-ho-ho, Biblical Monsters is eminently quotable. :D

4893823
"Satisfying values through friendship" is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for, actually. It's up there with "I am not a clever pony" from FoE.

4893878
Bringing up Two Peas in a Pod makes me realize that I'm not mentally cherry-picking these based solely on what I've read recently (though "Hi, I'm Puppysmiles! Have you seen my mom?" definitely qualifies), but just on what I've read period. I read that story probably five years ago, but seeing that line brings it all back. :D

4893995
I KNOW

4894010
Oh shit, that's actually from a story? :O

[Ice Star]

4894046
YES SO YOU'RE ASKING THE IMPOSSIBLE OF ME >:B

[FanOfMostEverything]

4894046
If I recall correctly, Estee said she knew what the last four words of that story were going to be almost from the moment she started it.

[ponygrad]

Would I let the world be any less cool by disappearing?

- End of Ponies and sundry SSE fics.

[Exuno]

Fluttershy voiced a silent agreement.

—Spatterdashery, by Violet CLM

[Reykan]

A single finger wiggled through an impossible hole in the container, the remnants of wood falling down in a shower of dust. "It was ironwood."

From A Bug on a Stick.

Chrysalis nods. “You’re right, there was enough in that bedchamber to fill all my holes!” She looked down at her legs. “I have many holes, Starlight Glimmer.”

Breaking Out to Avoid Being Broken In

"I hate this place already..." he muttered as he sat in the dark, "Feels just like home."

from Souls Apart

All three of these are on my favorites list.

If I'm pulling from my own list though, I think my favorite line was this from What's a Gary?

"We're watching you from just beyond the next hill, waiting for when you're ready to meet us. And we can't wait until that day."

[Unknownlight]

I think you peaked with the first post. "In the darkness, somepony coughed" might very well be the best example.

It's really difficult to think of examples purely off the top of my head, but it's a pretty good way to find lines that are actually memorable, rather than just good lines from stories I like. It's especially hard to think of examples that aren't repeated over and over and over until you can't help but remember it, like "Rainbow Dash flies east" from Austraeoh. Here's a few that I struggled to remember:

"Burning hoof means Littlepip is watching me." - Pinkie Pie, Fallout: Equestria

"My name is Lyra Heartstrings, and you will not remember me." - Lyra, Background Pony

"I just want the war to be over." - Celestia, The Treaty

[Icy Shake]

4894010
Kinda similar, if with very different context...
“Hey, Princess Fuckslut! I’m still alive down here!”

[PresentPerfect]

4894348
I think I actually didn't explain what I wanted in the first post too well.

I'm actually looking for lines where you see it and go, "I know this is from [story]", even if you've never read it. "Rainbow Dash flies east" is fucking perfect. (And it's not even from the text of the story!)

[Whiteout]

“Alright, boys and girls,” said Celestia, and then suddenly she was above them, wings outspread and hooves drawn back to strike. “TIME FOR A HISTORY LESSON!”

-To Dethrone a Princess, Codex Ex Equus

"I require... toast."

-50 Shades of Toast, Estee

[Moosetasm]

I don’t even remember if this is from a post about a story or from the story itself, I just remember it’s from a Chatoyance TCB story, it’s been aaaaaages:

“That is not dead which can eternal lie
Yet with strange aeons even Celestia may ponifaloonify”

[Aquaman]

I’m late to the party, but no one posted this one yet and that is goshdamn criminal:

The porridge was the desire to be somewhere else manifested in edible form.

The Education of Clover the Clever, Daedalus Aegle

[jarrad96]

I have a bunch, but I don’t have story links to them as it’s several years worth and some were on FFnet-

He had a voice like a rock star. Which is to say, he sounded like his throat had seen years of booze and more drugs than I could name.
-Atom Smasher

Bored bored bored bored bored. On a scale of one to ten, I am ninety-seven million, three hundred and twelve thousand seven hundred and fifty-two point five in terms of boredom. If my boredom were a mountain, it’d be this great big honkin’ rock of an island.
I have become Ennui, Bored of Bored. Look on me, and give me something to frigging do!

"Who is 'it' now? You know, the one in the group with the fewest unresolved psychological issues. The one we go to for help? "
-Glory

-"It can calculate the value of radroach meat, tell me if somepony plans to kill me or not, and can download the data I need and move it around for convenience even if I don’t have a clue how to look for the data. Is there anything it doesn’t do?"
-"Tell you the secret of happiness, apparently. "

“Where are the rest of you?”
"This is it. Just us."
"Well, this isn’t much of a rescue,”
"Gratitude. Look it up."
-LP, FOE

He was so tall and heavily-built his mother must have needed council planning permission to give birth.
-Atom Smasher, again

"The rain was pelting my back like a jealous ex-girlfriend pelts your face with mutilated parts of your now-dead cat."
Paragraph 1 of “Jericho”

Years of life with my old girlfriend had prepared me for this one moment. “I’m sorry I insulted you, I humbly request your forgiveness, and will buy you expensive flowers at some point in order to display my culture’s traditional token of apology and romance. Now, give me my thing back.”
(More Jericho)

Honestly! You pick now to whine about which of you more disappointed your mothers? I was born with a penis. I beat both of you for disappointed mothers!
-P21

I’m not good at metaphors, OK? Poetry in general is lost on me. When I try to turn a phrase it usually ends up in an impossible, non-euclidean shape. In fact a former tutor of mine, during a moment of frustration after I tried to rhyme the word “person” with itself four times in a single stanza, once told me he was revoking my poetic license.
(Think this was from the Hard Reset series)

“Word o’ warning,” Gawdyna said, leaning over to me. “If you ever think o’ havin’ kids, beware. No matter how much you love them, eventually, they will become teenagers.”

[BronyWriter]

4893849
I know it's a touch narcissistic, but I'm glad to see somebody put that. That line literally changed my life.

[Bulbasaur]

"Perhaps being in love is everyone's chance to be a hero."
"Love at first sight is for fairy tales. Real life is messier"
Alas, Dash was right. Home changed while they were gone.
"I lost something I never had and I never realised I wanted until it was gone. How silly is that?"
Ponies ate, and talked, and laughed. The community came together and lived. Hours flowed by like leaves upon a stream. And above, in ones and twos and then by thousands, the silent stars emerged to witness the slow resurrection of the night.
“What’s wrong with normal?” -- “It’s not wrong, it’s just...” He frowned. “It’s not for me, you know?”
The posting didn't matter, she realised. If she didn't pass today, then she would next year, or the year after that. Being a Wonderbolt was her life's goal, which meant she had her whole life to make it.
She dreamed of pain, and when she woke, her dream came true.
Rainbow Dash could only taste ashes -- Rarity could still taste Cirrus's seed from their first round of play.
"It was my home before I knew it existed. I just had to find it."
Tirelessly she climbed, for there was nothing in her soul but that single imperative: Higher.
And then she woke up. But not really.
Fucking dreams. Fucking, fucking dreams.
-- Salvation, CiG

“Er, wait. That was a typo. I should have said ‘Uncommon,’ back there, not ‘Rarity’. You probably knew that, though. Moving on!”
She opened her mouth to speak, then closed it. More silence. It wasn’t awkward — that line had been crossed so long ago it ceased to have any real meaning.
-- Naked Singularity, CiG

“You shut your whore mouth before I shut it for you!”
"Their world never changed, and neither did they. They never grew, and when they died they were still young as foals."
-- CiG

If all I care about in life is the imprints I make in this world, then the most I'll ever leave is a grave.
-- Background Pony, SS&E

The unnatural shoot was over.
-- Storm, kits

"Kindness? What the hell kind of weapon is that?" -- "The kind that earns you friends."
-- Fo:E, kkat

Had to look some of these up to get the exact wording
Edit: Oh, I see this wasn't what you were looking for :p

[Bad Horse]

4893814

"Put your boots on," Adams said. "There's a biblical monster in my house."

Oh, yeah. That one I can quote from memory.

4893853

“Well, it’s like Granny Smith says. You can let a foal go through life afraid, or you can lock her in a dark room with a thousand spiders until she stops screaming.” Applejack put her basket under another tree and lined up for a kick. “She’s just full of folksy wisdom.” - Skywriter

I wake up, and I think I would like to be a farmer today. -- CiG

Both also seconded!

4893848

"The first time we danced, she broke my jaw in three places."
- Daring Do and the Dance, by Georg

Yes! One of my favorite first lines.

4894348
"My name is Lyra Heartstrings, and you will not remember me."
Hell, yes.

I shut my eyes and the noose slips around Daisy's neck.

She is lying on her stomach, and the noose slips easily around her neck as if it were made just for her. It is the color of sand and the contrast it creates against Daisy's velveteen purple coat is striking. The life is draining out of her eyes. There is a hoof on her back, and she is lying on her stomach, and the life is draining out of her eyes. In a few moments she will be dead. Lily will die next if I do not open my eyes soon. This is what I see whenever they are closed.

Eyes Without a Face - theycallmejub

Bouts of Forgetful Artistic Destruction

In a nearly empty library, a pegasus librarian with a blond mane the color of a sunflower’s petals sat behind an information desk and tore pages out of a hardback book. The library was called the Canterlot Public Library. The librarian was called Gale.

I was in Gary, Indiana to write an article. The article was to be about the accomplishments of the American steel industry in the twentieth century. It was my last chance, my editor had told me. Last chance. The magazine wasn’t a hospice, she told me. She wouldn’t allow the dying and the lost and the alone to suckle at this teat. Not me. If all I wanted was to die a little while longer, I could do it someplace else, she told me. If I wanted to contribute, if I wanted to be a team player, she told me, I would go to Gary, Indiana and write an article about the accomplishments of the American steel industry in the twentieth century.

Along Softly on the Tongue -HoofBitingActionOverload

Notice nearly all of these so far are first lines.

Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. She's seen them all, of course — had her coat made soot-black by the carbon winds of a dying red giant. Watched nitrogen being born in starhearts, traced the slow drift of clouds of oxygen spilling from the innards of torn-apart nebulae. But here ... here they danced to entirely new tunes, and in their ceaseless combining and recombining they made such things as ponies, and meadows, symphonies and love stories, paperwork, and hugs.

GhostOfHeraclitus' "Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, Nitrogen"

The world, you see, is ever changing. It whistles through the cosmos, spinning and whirling, all the little lives fluttering like glitter in a kaleidoscope. The world is a beautiful place.

And, perhaps in ten years, perhaps in a thousand, I will have it.

Kaleidoscope - TheVulpineHero1

Nearly every line of RUN - Stereo_Sub

And then they had sex.

Shipping Goggles - AbsoluteAnonymous

[Bad Horse]

4893823

"'I say, Cheese,' I said, to Cheese," from The Rummy Business of Old Blooey, is a first line that I just adore. It's so twee and silly, it's a spot-on introduction to the rest of the fic.

Oh, yeah, that's a great one!

And you remind me of another:

“Thou art not the Wyrmlysan,” she whispered, “and I fear no prophecy.”

With a single vicious spasm, she dashed it upon the ground.

-- Wyrmlysan - Chris

[badninja]

“I can never wake to the sun.”

From Celestia Sleeps In by Admiral Biscuit

“Hello from the children of planet Earth”

From Voyage's End by The DM

[Brumby_Run]

I mean, I'm sure I could have done it and it's not like I'm anything special, thought the Element of Magic

Twilight’s Escort Service

"You meet a lot of weirdos in this business," the professional kidnapper stated.

Your Alicorn Is In Another Castle

"You're a shield. And if a shield doesn't know why it's getting hit, why anypony would ever hit it, then all it understands is that the hits hurt and they don't stop."

The Bounce Test

“Yes it was, talking to animals is my special talent,” said Fluttershy, “once you learn otter, Swedish is easy.”

Conquering the Mountain

"Well, I don't know about you," he said pointedly, "but I'd like to go to sleep knowing I'm not in the starring role in anypony's nightmares."

"Y'all don't got much in common; that's her main ambition in life," said Apple Bloom dryly. Diamond Tiara haughtily turned her nose up at the farmpony and began whispering vociferously with Silver Spoon.

It Takes a Village

[KwirkyJ]

I admit to cheating to make sure I had them right and not paraphrased; was close enough to merit. Bear in mind, I hadn't read these in years as opposed to weeks. There are others that are almost-remembered, but not enough to pass muster (i.e., locate via trivial google search).

Neighton’s Third Law of Family Inertia - Relatives attract each other in direct proportion to the length of time they have been separated, and the stress exerted on them during that time.

The Travelling Tutor and the Librarian

---

"Tell me, why are we in the library?"

The Immortal Game, mainly memorable to me because of the argument that surrounds it.

---

How long do gifts take to grow?

I'm sure that this is from a Gardez short, but it didn't turn up. An unspoken response to Luna, who inquired about her sunflower plants.