What Is The Best Sentence Ever?

It was easier than I thought it would be choosing the BEST SENTENCE EVER! The mistake that most book snobs make when debating about the BEST SENTENCE EVER is that they argue about well-written sentences from great literary works, but all that does is get a bunch of literary eggheads to start quote-testing each other for clout.

To me, the BEST SENTENCE EVER should have a practical value. It should be something that is understandable to the common person. It should be a sentence that doesn’t require the context of a masterpiece written decades/centuries ago.

Keep that in mind as I compare my BEST SENTENCE EVER with those of other literary eggheads from 2014.

THE BEST SENTENCE EVER RANT!!!!! (2014)

Some guys from a literary magazine have devised a list of the ten best sentences ever. I don’t like this list because I’m pretty sure the judges haven’t read every sentence ever written. Their selections are limited to famous literary authors like Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jane Austen. These might be some of the best authors ever, but that doesn’t mean that one of them wrote the best sentence ever. There’s a chance that some unknown schmuck has written a really great sentence and we’d never know it because it’s in some book that the judges never read.

Maybe the best sentence ever was written on a blog or on Wikipedia or on Twitter (very unlikely). Maybe James Patterson has written the best sentence ever, and the judges never read anything by James Patterson. Maybe one of James Patterson’s co-authors has written the best sentence ever, but nobody wants James Patterson to take credit for it, so nobody has called the real best sentence ever “the best sentence ever!”

I think the best sentence ever is “You suck!”

“You suck!” is short, but it packs a punch. Ernest Hemingway might not ever have written “You suck,” but he’d know what it means, and he might have wished that he had written it first.

And “You suck!” is the perfect way to end any rant.

When James Patterson decides to write two books a month instead of one, you can say to him: “You suck!”

When some guy wants to print out every page of Wikipedia and call it art, you can say to that guy: “You suck!”

When some literary judge chooses a convoluted sentence by F. Scott Fitzgerald as the best ever, you can say to that judge: “You suck!” or “That sentence sucks!”

Now, I’m not the kind of person who says “You suck!” to other people, so maybe I’m a hypocrite, but “You suck!” is still the best sentence ever, even if I never say it.

UPDATE (2025)

I say “You suck!” much more frequently than I did in 2014.  I usually say it to inanimate objects when they’re actively working against me, but I have to be careful if there are other people around.  A few weeks ago, I said “You suck” to a can of beans in a crowded grocery store (it was the wrong can of beans).  I had to clarify to other people jostling through the aisle that I was talking to the can of beans and not to them.  Those people around me might have sucked, but I wasn’t 100% certain, and I didn’t want to throw around false accusations. 

Fortunately, nobody took it personally.  Even the can of beans didn’t seem to mind.  I’m too old to get punched out for blurting out “You suck!” in public.  

I still think “You suck!” can be considered one of the best sentences ever.  It’s not the fault of “You suck!” if I misuse it in public and get punched out.

Here’s where you can find the original “You suck!” rant (and much more!): The Literary Rants (2014)

*****

It’s the oldest story in the world, 1990s style!

Man meets woman; man falls in “luuuvvv” with woman; man gets shlobberknocked by reality!

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