Amazing Dialogue - What's your favorite?

Just wanted to get everyone's thoughts on where you constantly seem to watch/read great dialogue, and maybe an example or excerpt.

Anyone here familiar with White Wolf Publishing / The World of Darkness? They're responsible for numerous roleplaying games, some of which include Vampire: The Masquerade as well as Werewolf, Mage, etc.

I don't play the games, but the books are so damn amazing. In particular the Vampire rule book they have. It has some game mechanics/rules in there, but the earlier and later chapters (and sprinkles here and there in the middle chapters) have short stories and long monologues of vampires speaking to other vampires, humans, themselves, etc.

Every time I read this rule book I just come out speechless. Here's an excerpt, the very first page of the rule book. I'd like some of your thoughts on it as well as some of your own personal favorites.


Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts

"Bela Lugosi's dead, and so am I. But what's left of Bela is rotting in a pine coffin somewhere, while I have the opportunity to sit here on the balcony, enjoy my drink and look at you. Correct me if I'm being presumptuous, but I suspect that I have the better end of the deal.

I can tell by looking at you that you're not comprehending. Of course you're not--these are cynical, rational times, and you're not going to believe that I'm a dead man just because I say so. A century ago it would have been different--well, it was quite different the last time I had this little talk with someone--but this is the age of facts. And the facts are that corpses don't move, don't walk, don't talk. I'm terribly sorry my dear, but I have a surprise for you: This corpse does.

So sit down. Please, I insist that you make yourself comfortable. Pour yourself something to drink, preferably from the bottle on the left-- the stuff on the right is an acquired taste. It's going to be a long evening, and you're going to need a stiff drink or two, I suspect. After all, in the next few hours I'm going to explain to you in excruciating detail why everything you think you know about life and death is wrong. In other words, you don't know a blessed thing about the way the world really works, and I'm going to open your eyes.

But I'm afraid, my dear, that you're not going to like what you see."

Actually Dpat, what I like most about the 'monologue' is that it doesn't fall into the trap that the story is set in 1998. Even though it is, the vampire is supposedly over 200 years old. Don't you think he'd be a bit on the proper/ "as a matter of fact" side?

I guess I picture the scene in a certain way in my mind, maybe thats why these lines work better for me. They would definitely have to be preformed by someone who can add a certain distinguishable flavor to them, considering they are simple and maybe bland.

But point taken. I guess you can't take into account the music and the 'on the set mood' and the actor when your writing. Your sole purpose is to make the dialogue lively without all the effects. Tis a learning experience.