Terry Pratchett - Jingo

In 1914, the Kaiser apparently made a similar observation of the British Expeditionary Force sent to oppose the German advance through Belgium. The soldiers later proudly adopted the name ‘Old Contemptibles’.

Judging from the name, this could be one of Leonard's creations — but actually we've learned in Soul Music that this particular invention was the work of Ponder Stibbons at Unseen University.

There's a famous but true story of how, on Christmas Day 1914, troops from British and German units came out of the trenches and played football in No-Man's Land.

This speech is very similar to the end of the film Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean, 1962). Prince Feisal tells Lawrence: “There's nothing further here, for a warrior. We drive bargains, old men's work. Young men makes wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Old men make the peace and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.”

Early in the film Lawrence of Arabia , Lawrence is sitting in an office drawing maps and talking to his compatriot about the Bedouin attacking the Turks. Another man joins them and Lawrence lights a cigarette, putting the match out with his fingers. The newcomer tries the same trick, but drops the match with a shout of “it hurts.” To which Lawrence replies: “The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson was the star player of the Chicago White Sox during the 1919 World Series. When it emerged that he had (allegedly) accepted bribes to throw the series, the fans' collective reaction was of shocked incredulity: the line “Say it ain't so, Joe!” became the canonical form of begging someone to deny an allegation that is too shocking to accept, but too convincing to disbelieve.

At the end of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities , Sydney Carton, good-natured layabout and occasional drunk, goes to the guillotine in the place of his beloved's beloved.

The book's famous last line is not a direct quote from Sydney (since he's already dead by then), but rather what the narrator feels he might have said: “If he had given any utterance to his [thoughts], and they were prophetic, they would have been these: ‘[…] It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.’”.