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I wish people really talked like that

Lists are addictive. Letterman made them a cult-culture phenomenon with his top 10 list. VH1 took the countdown shows to new heghts (or a new low, perhaps) with such shows as "The top 20 hair bands of the '80s." And a few years ago, AFI had everyone debating at watercoolers over whether "Citizen Kane" really was the best movie ever. (Pause here while readers shout out their nuh-uhs and alternative preferences...)

Last night, I got sucked into the latest countdown show by AFI (the American Film Institute). It was the 100 Greatest Movie Lines of All Time. I tried to guess which ones might make the top 10. Apparently there haven't been any well written movies in the past couple decades, because I think the most recent movie of the top 10 was from the early '80s. And it's amazing how I can quote nearly every line of every John Hughes movie, but nothing from those films even made the ballot (which included 400 great lines).

The best line of all time, according to the show, was a fed-up-to-here Rhett's exit line to Scarlet in Gone With the Wind—"Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn." Another one of the top lines was Bogey's gentle grumble to the beautiful, dewy-eyed Ingrid Bergman, "Here's looking at you, kid" from Casablanca. Others of note were Brando's, "I coulda been a contenda" and "We'll make him an offer he can't refuse." Of course, several Wizard of Oz classics made the list, including "There's no place like home" and "I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto."

But a few of my favorite lines from the ballot of 400 (available for download at www.afi.com) were these:

I was born when she kissed me. I died when she left me. I lived a few weeks while she loved me.
-Dixon Steele in In a Lonely Place (Humphrew Bogart, 1950)

I gave her my heart, and she gave me a pen.
-Lloyd Dobler in Say Anything (John Cusack, 1989)

I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.
-Crash Davis in Bull Durham (Kevin Costner, 1988)

I'm a hopeless romantic. A sap, really.
Excuse me while I swoon.

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