Not your usual V-Day pickup lines

I’ve never been one for pickup lines. Even back when they might have served a useful purpose in my life, I couldn’t see myself reciting text from a classic romantic movie, a great poem or book, or even a cheesy pop song. Some things you have to figure out in your own words, I guess.

But let’s face it, we all love classic lines, things that we wish we had said at some point, to somebody. And we all love lists, for some strange reason. So this Valentine’s Day, let’s look at some of those classics, in movie, literature and song. I will try my best to avoid lines that have crossed the blood-brain barrier over to pure cheesiness — “You complete me,” “You jump, I jump,” “I’m just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her,” et al — and focus on personal favorites instead.

Here’s something I noticed, at least among my own selection: movie lines tend to skew toward comedies; literary lines are usually hardcore declarations of love, the stuff that clutches the soul; and the best romantic song lyrics are of the brokenhearted variety. Always. Go figure.

Movies That Nail It

• “I love that you get cold when it’s 71 degrees out. I love that it takes you an hour and a half to order a sandwich. I love that you get a little crinkle in your nose when you’re looking at me like I’m nuts. I love that after I spend day with you, I can still smell your perfume on my clothes. And I love that you are the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep at night. And it’s not because I’m lonely, and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. 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.”

— Harry (Billy Crystal) to Sally (Meg Ryan) in When Harry Met Sally (1989)

This lighthearted rom-com has aged pretty well. Both guys and girls still quote from it liberally, and young lovers model their male-female disconnects on its evergreen wisdom. It’s also got that great soundtrack, and at the end of the day, who can resist a makeup scene on New Year’s Eve?

• “No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed, and often, and by someone who knows how.” —Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) to Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) in Gone With the Wind (1939)

Gable was the coolest, seeing right through Scarlett O’Hara’s frillery to her fiery passion, and recognizing a pillar of strength there. The line may ring a little sexist these days, but in this case he was spot-on: having gone through Atlanta in flames to be with her, only to be spurned yet again, a little tough love was in order.

• Phil (Bill Murray): “You like boats, but not the ocean. You go to a lake in the summer with your family up in the mountains. There’s a long wooden dock and a boathouse with boards missing from the roof, and a place you used to crawl underneath to be alone. You’re a sucker for French poetry and rhinestones. You’re very generous. You’re kind to strangers and children, and when you stand in the snow you look like an angel.”

Rita (Andie MacDowell): “How are you doing this?”

Phil: “I told you. I wake up every day, right here, right in Punxsutawney, and it’s always February 2nd, and there’s nothing I can do about it.” — Groundhog Day (1993)

Something about the persistence of memory, and how those things we love about somebody are burned into our being — forever, it seems. Groundhog Day was about weatherman Bill Murray’s descent into a déjà vu nightmare, but it was also about his redemption and his ticket out again — by actually spending that day on somebody else.

• C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon): “You hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you.”

Fran Kubelik (Shirley Mac- Laine): “Shut up and deal...”  — Billy Wilder’s The Apartment (1960)

A bittersweet romance about two characters in separate cages — he in an office cubicle, she in an elevator car — who finally find out they don’t have to be alone. Sardonic, funny, sad, a masterpiece.

• Joel (Jim Carrey): “I can’t see anything that I don’t like about you.”

Clementine (Kate Winslet): “But you will! But you will. You know, you will think of things. And I’ll get bored with you and feel trapped because that’s what happens with me.”

Joel: “Okay.”

Clementine: “Okay.”  — Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

A modern classic. Not exactly the stuff of Keats here, but Joel’s blank acknowledgment that love is about accepting the good with the bad plays pretty true. Pink hair and all.

(By the way, the title of Michel Gondry’s film comes from Alexander Pope’s poem “Eloisa to Abelard”: “How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.”)