Computer scientists show what makes movie lines memorable

"Two patterns emerged to identify the memorable choice: distinctiveness and generality."

"A line will be less general if it contains third-person pronouns and definite articles (which refer to people, objects or events in the scene) and uses past tense (usually referring to something that happened previously in the story)."

"Memorable quotes use more sounds made in the front of the mouth, words with more syllables and fewer coordinating conjunctions."

A funny line is also memorable.