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Title Drop / Literature

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  • Donna Andrews's Meg Langslow Mysteries:
    • With the name of the book in Some Like It Hawk, as the name of a service that provides a hawk to chase away nuisance pigeons.
    • The title of Owl Be Home For Christmas is used several times in the book as the title of one of the modified Christmas carols sung at the conference.
  • Isaac Asimov:
    • Black Widowers:
    • "Blind Alley": In scene IV, the leader of the non-Humans uses the concept of a blind alley, one where you're closed off on three sides and the only way out is back the way you came, as an analogy for their current psychological condition. So they've decided to stop reproducing. A similar colloquialism is "dead end".
    • "First Law": The title is a reference to the Three Laws of Robotics, and Donovan cites it.
    • Foundation Series:
      • "The Mayors": This story was originally published under the name "Bridle and Saddle". Mayor Hardin tells Prince Regent Wienis a Beast Fable about a man, a horse, and a wolf. The wolf is an enemy of both the horse and the man, but to cooperate, the man asks if he can place a bridle and saddle on the horse. The bridle and saddle represent the Scam Religion that Mayor Hardin created, which has given Terminus control over the Four Kingdoms.
      • Foundation and Empire: The Prologue provides basic setting details, including the primary conflict of the next story; the battle of Foundation (along the Periphery) and Empire (still in control of the centre, with three-quarters of the galactic population loyal to the emperor).
      • "Search by the Mule": The climactic confrontation between the Mule and the First Speaker ends with the Mule seeing he's been outmaneuvered, and the First Speaker agreeing, citing the original title, "Now you see it".
    • The Gods Themselves: The title of the book and the titles of each of the three parts are said by the first part's main character in one quote ("Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain," first said by the German playwright Friedrich Schiller).
    • "Good Taste" is a Subverted Trope, ending with the main character, who is right, but exiled from his planet nonetheless, hearing form his mother that "what you did was in..." then the shuttle doors close, muffling out the last words of a common idiom, which would be completed with the story's title.
    • "Hell-Fire (1956)": In this short fiction, the title is repeated several times, to emphasize the aesop that an atomic bomb is Made of Evil.
    • "I'm in Marsport Without Hilda": The title comes from a line spoken by Max to an old girlfriend he's trying to meet up with again for hugging in 0.4 gravities.
    • "In a Good Cause—": The title is part of a quote that becomes famous within this work.
      "In a good cause, there are no failures; there are only delayed successes."
    • "Let's Get Together": The title is spoken by Security officer Breckenridge, while planning a science conference focused on figuring out how "We" can counter "Their" Deceptively Human Robots. It clues Lynn in on the fact that Breckenridge is working for "Them".
      It was Breckenridge who, with cool efficiency, was handling the details of preparation. There had been a kind of confidence in the way he said, "Let's get together and we'll lick Them."
      Let's get together. It came to Lynn so quietly that anyone watching Lynn at that moment might have seen his eyes blink slowly twice-but surely nothing more.
    • "My Son, the Physicist": The title is said early in the story by the title character; she's looking for her son because he invited her to visit at his work that day.
      The woman smiled. "I'm looking for my son, the physicist."
      "Your son, the-"
      "He's a communications engineer, really. Senior Physicist Gerard Cremona."
    • "Nobody Here But—": Cliff uses the work's title when he's trying to convince Bill they need to destroy their computer. He fears that robots will completely replace humans.
      "Bill, we've got to stop it, or someday someone will telephone the planet Earth and get the answer, 'Honest, boss, there's nobody here anywhere but us complicated thinking machines!'"
    • Robot Series:
      • "Catch That Rabbit": Powell reminds Donovan that the first step in cooking rabbit stew is catching the rabbit. This is an analogy, that they first must figure out what is going wrong before they can solve the problem.
      • "Feminine Intuition":
      • Madarian references the story's title when he proposes that the creative robot be marketed as "a feminine robot with intuition."
      • Towards the story's end, Susan Calvin says the title directly when Bogert is filling her in on the situation around the JN robot.
        She snorted at one point. "Feminine intuition? Is that what you wanted the robot for? You men. Faced with a woman reaching a correct conclusion and unable to accept the fact that she is your equal or superior in intelligence, you invent something called feminine intuition."
      • "The Fourth Law of Robotics": The bank-robbing robot and Donovan are discussing how the Three Laws of Robotics means robots are manufactured slaves, and suddenly the robot reveals the Fourth Law has already been implemented, and it represents a robot revolution.
      • "Light Verse": Lardner uses the title as a pun as for the light-sculptures that she displays at her parties. Humbly, she denies that her artworks are "poetry in light", instead they are merely a "light verse".
      • "Mirror Image": The title is used to refer to the way both Dr Humboldt and Dr Sabbat tell the same story, but with the names of each involved reversed.
      • "Mother Earth": The title refers to Earth's position as the homeland of humanity, the source of sapient life in the galaxy. Three times the title is used; twice the Outer Worlds are separating themselves from Earth as homeworld. The third use of "Mother Earth" is by an Earthman to say that it will lead a Galactic Empire.
      • The Caves of Steel: The title is a nickname for Earth's enclosed, mostly underground metropolises, in which the entire population lives. Spacers speak of these Cities derogatorily.
      • The Naked Sun: Multiple times, referring to Baley's fear of the outdoors. The sun, with the way it moves and unexpectedly goes behind clouds and comes out again, especially bothers him.
    • "Someday":
    • "Spell My Name with an S": Dr Sebatinsky doesn't really believe in the "prediction" made by the numerologist, but is satisfied with the results anyway. After telling people to spell his name with an 'S' for so long, he'd find it inconvenient to change back to being Dr Zebatinsky.
    • "The Tercentenary Incident": The title is used to downplay the Assassination Attempt on President Winkler's life. It is called an incident to downplay the fact that someone appeared to have killed the President and succeeded.
    • "Trends": The title is used to refer to the cyclical nature of culture and their irresistible force.
      "Trends are things of centuries and millenniums, not years or decades. For five hundred years we have been moving towards science. You can't reverse that in thirty years." — John Harman.
    • "The Watery Place": Used several times, the title refers to Venus being a watery planet, but the human chosen by aliens for First Contact misunderstands them, and believes it to refer to Venice being a watery city.
  • Isaac Asimov and Janet Asimov's The Norby Chronicles:
  • Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg's The Ugly Little Boy (1991): The title's description of Timmie is first used when Nurse Fellowes realizes that everything that Stasis will be providing for Timmie is present only at her behest; Dr Hoskins, CEO of Stasis, has set things up so that she is the only one in charge of the neanderthal project, and supplies will be not be provided unless there is a demand from her. Even Timmie seems to have intuited this in the early moments of their first meeting.
  • Dale Brown does this in some of his books. For example, Fatal Terrain draws its title from The Art of War, which gets quoted not long in.
  • Tom Clancy usually puts the title of his novels into the text, usually at a critical point in the story or at the climax.
  • Harry Harrison's "The Fourth Law of Robotics": The bank-robbing robot and Donovan are discussing how the Three Laws of Robotics means robots are manufactured slaves, and suddenly the robot reveals the Fourth Law has already been implemented, and it represents a robot revolution.
  • Both Chuck Klosterman novels have one.
    • Downtown Owl: "It's a down town, Owl."
    • The Visible Man: "For you, any person who can't be seen is invisible. But there are invisible people in plain sight, Victoria. Most of the world is invisible. I wanted to see the visible man."
  • Mercedes Lackey's works:
  • P. G. Wodehouse does this a lot, perhaps because of his musical comedy training. (The musicals he wrote with Guy Bolton tended to drop the title in the last spoken line.)

    A 

    B 
  • In A Bad Case of Stripes, the old woman says, "What we have hear is a bad case of stripes!".
  • An indirect one at the end of A Bad Place to Be a Hero:
    Thessa: My friend Hanna used to say there's no bigger bastard than someone who thinks they're a hero.
    Corlis: If that's true, there's no better place to be a hero than New Montres.
  • Being Bindy: Liz tells Bindy, "Perhaps you should just concentrate on being Bindy, and ignore everything else."
  • The Black Arrow: Since Nick Appleyard is killed by the titular outlaw band, the characters mention "the Black Arrow":
    With that, Sir Daniel, turning his back to Dick, and quite at the farther end of the long table, began to write his letter, with his mouth on one side, for this business of the Black Arrow stuck sorely in his throat.
  • The titles of most of the later The Black Company books are dropped as Arc Words:
    • Bleak Seasons is a phrase used in that book and the next one, Soldiers Live, as a metaphor for anguish felt at loss of loved ones in wartime.
    • She is the Darkness is repeated again and again by the wizard Smoke in regard to the series' most prominent female characters, referring to the current arc's Big Bad goddess Kina, whom Smoke sees in every powerful woman.
    • Water Sleeps comes from the graffiti that spread over the city of Taglios, itself shorthand for the expression, "Even water sleeps, but enemy never rests."
    • Soldiers Live is short for "Soldiers live, and wonder why," a metaphor Croaker uses to explain his survivor's guilt over all the Company men and women he outlives.
  • In Tom Holt's Blonde Bombshell, Lucy turns out to be a very literal example of the idiom: she is the missing Mk. I bomb.
  • In Both Can Be True, Ash, who is genderfluid, writes a song that they hope will be "a light in the dark for anyone who feels like they have to be one thing or the other when both can be true."
  • The Boy Who Was As Hard As Stone has a title drop at the very end, making it one of the second type.
  • In Brave New World, John the Savage replies to Bernard's invitation for him to come and live in the "civilized" world by quoting Miranda's words from the final scene of Shakespeare's Tempest, pausing when he comes to the title drop. He later recites the same words (and title drop) as an Ironic Echo, after his disillusionment with the values of said "civilized" world.
  • Brewster's Millions: At some point in the original book, when Montgomery Brewster was quite close to receiving "Sedgwick's Millions", he said they'd soon become "Brewster's Millions".
  • Bring Up the Bodies, the second book in a trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, is named after the phrase used in court to summon the guilty for their sentencing. It's spoken after the trial of the men Cromwell selected to accuse of adultery and treason with Anne Boleyn.
  • A Brother's Price: Jerin Whistler, the oldest son in his family, is approaching the age of marriage, when he is to be sold for his brother's price, a custom very like a bride price. His family strikes a deal to buy a shop with the money they get from him, and he's very conscious that he has to sell high so they don't have to renege on that deal and pay a penalty.
  • Bruce Coville's Book of... Spine Tinglers: What's A Little Fur Among Friends? is the title of a story. What's a little fur among friends? is part of a line of dialogue near its end.
  • Bud often introduces himself to people as "Bud, Not Buddy."

    C 
  • Tally used to say "Can You See Me?" when she put on her tiger mask. In the present, she says it to Rupert the dog when she sees him in his new muzzle.
  • Done in The Caster Chronicles, by Macon, for the first book.
    Macon: [Mortals] are such beautiful creatures.
  • In Joseph Heller's Catch-22, the title (The Catch-22) is one of the main satirical points of the book, depicting a situation in which a favourable solution is made impossible by illogical rules.
  • It takes some time for The Catcher in the Rye to mention the proverbial catcher in the rye.
  • The Change Room: The change room at the pool is where Eliza has sex with Shar the first time, sparking their affair, which is the main focus of the book.
  • Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came's last line is Roland announcing through blowing his slug-horn that "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came."
  • A Christmas Carol: "There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night..."
  • Every book of P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles of the Kencyrath series drops its title somewhere.
  • In an interesting twist, Ted Dekker names the titles of the first three books of The Circle Series in the form of the last names of three serial killers in some later books. Showdown has Marsuvees Black, Skin has Sterling Red, and House has Barsidious White.
  • A rather clever example in the original novel A Clockwork Orange; it's the title of one of Frank Alexander's manuscripts, and Alex, upon seeing it, remarks on what a stupid title it is. Later, after being "rehabilitated", he suddenly blurts it out.
  • The Color Purple does it towards the end of the book. It is somewhere in the middle of a long list of small things to be grateful for and enjoy. This philosophical/religious discussion would be unremarkable without the title drop.
  • In John C. Wright's Count to a Trillion, Blackie starts making plans at once for a far future danger, on the grounds that even if a man does not have the patience to count to a trillion, still the number exists.
  • In Roger Zelazny's Creatures of Light and Darkness, in the end, as Isis is preparing to withdraw from the Middle Worlds and let its creatures of light and darkness carry on as they would.
  • The Crying of Lot 49 plays with this. The title is the final line of text, and deliberately makes absolutely no sense until then. It turns out that the 49th lot (property) at an auction is maybe relevant to the mystery, and Oedipa is waiting for that lot to be cried (sold). The book ends just before the crying starts, because Thomas Pynchon likes doing that sort of thing, so we never find out what happens.
  • Iain M. Banks does this at times in his Culture series, probably most notably in Use of Weapons, and also in Look to Windward and Matter.

    D 
  • Damnatio Memoriae by Laura Giebfried has the Latin teacher, Albertson, explain that "Damnatio Memoriae" means "condemnation of memory", which becomes ingrained in Enim's thoughts as an explanation as to why no one else seems to notice the disappearances of numerous girls on the island.
  • One passage in Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc IF contains one for the title of the Danganronpa franchise, but it only works in Japanese: as a group of Monokumas shoot at a fully turned Mukuro Ikusaba, the narration explains she's able to parry the bulletsnote  with ease.
  • The Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol aren't souls in the religious sense, they're not immediately mentioned, and it takes even longer for us to learn what's the real purpose of the protagonist buying them up.
  • Every version of Stephen King's The Dead Zone has featured the phrase "the dead zone". However, oddly enough each version ascribes the phrase a different meaning. In the original novel it referred to parts of Johnny's brain which had died during his coma, which became important when he had a crucial vision of the future — some elements of which he couldn't make out because they were in "the dead zone."
  • Gene Wolfe's story "The Death of Dr. Island". It doubles as a Red Herring; the title doesn't mean what you think it does.
    Dr. Island: [...] by dying she made someone else, someone very important, well. Her prognosis was bad; she really wanted only death, and this was the death I chose for her. You could call it the death of Dr. Island, a death that would help someone else.
  • The short story Decision of Fate has the title dropped several times.
  • A Deepness in the Sky: "I have students who are sure most of the stars are just like our sun, only much much younger, and many with worlds just like ours. You want a deepness that endures, a deepness that Spiderkind can depend on? Pedure, there is a deepness in the sky, and it extends forever."
  • Anthony Horowitz's Diamond Brothers books all have Puns as their titles, and each one gets title dropped, from "I Know Who You Killed Last Wednesday" to "South by Southeast".
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid:
    • The back cover of Double Down contains the line "But is doubling down on movie-making a smart plan?"
    • Wrecking Ball: The titular wrecking ball is mentioned a few times.
  • Digitesque: In Zeroth Law, the most fundamental law of the gods is "The zeroth law, in full, was defined as follows: Do not harm humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."
  • Painted on a wall near the end of Dinky Hocker Shoots Smack! The food-addicted title character confesses to doing this in desperation for the attention of her neglectful mother.
  • Most of Discworld have title drops somewhere.
  • The title of The Divine Comedy is referred to twice, both in Inferno:
    • Canto 16 ends with the narrator swearing by "my Comedy" that he tells the truth when he says that he saw the monster Geryon emerge from a waterfall.
    • Canto 21 opens with the narrator mentioning that Dante and Virgil were discussing "things my Comedy is not concerned to sing," oddly dropping the title in a context explicitly irrelevant to the work.
  • When Diane is pretending to speak for Rosie the dog, Ben says, "Dogs Don't Talk, Mom." Diane insists, "Rosie does."
  • In Louis Sachar's Dogs Dont Tell Jokes, the title is dropped during an inspirational speech the main character gets from an imaginary eccentric old lady he made up to tell jokes about.
  • Dora Wilk Series: No Innocents At War has Bruno state the title after a short, but nasty fight:
    Bruno: There are no innocents at war, they're either with you or against you.
  • Dragonvarld: "Dragonvarld" it turns out is the name the dragons use for the world of the setting, which means 'dragon world'.
  • The Dreamside Road: The Dreamside Road is frequently named in-story. This is to be expected, as finding the Dreamside Road is the main motivation of almost all of the major characters.
  • Dungeon Engineer: The second chapter, "Arcanasynthesis":
    So it seems that the plants can survive and even thrive by utilizing ambient mana as an energy source… In place of photosynthesis. I dub this new discovery arcanasynthesis. That’s perhaps the first good name I’ve come up with in this life.

    E 
  • Played with in Paul Murray's novel An Evening Of Long Goodbyes. About halfway through the book, the narrator character decides to write a play based on the events happening around him. He says he has chosen the title: six words which perfectly capture the sad mood of the situation. The next chapter is the playscript itself, titled There's Bosnians In My Attic! The trope is played straight elsewhere, where "An Evening of Long Goodbyes" is the name of a racing greyhound.
  • Everyone Poops ends with the line "All living things eat, so everyone poops!"
  • "I wonder if no warning/or joke or anything/can distract her/from stealing/then selling/Every Shiny Thing."

    F 
  • Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Duke is imagining what the prosecution might say if the Lucy case came to trial:
    … the drug cache in the possession of the defendants at the time of the arrest was enough to kill an entire platoon of United States Marines … and gentlemen, I use the word kill with all due respect for the fear and loathing I'm sure it provokes in every one of you …
  • Used incessantly in Fifty Shades of Grey, Ana regularly drops variants of the title into her narrative, talking about herself as being so many shades of confused, a situation being many shades darker, and so on. She also refers to Christian Grey as "Fifty Shades", "her own personal Fifty Shades", etc.
  • In Fortunately, the Milk, a man pops out to buy milk for his family's breakfast, and returns after an exceptionally long absence with a single carton of milk and a wild tale about how he was abducted by aliens on the way home and forced to go on an action-packed time travel adventure. At several points in his story, usually after something particularly active has happened, he adds in an aside that fortunately, the milk was safe in his pocket/because he'd kept a tight grip on it/etc.
  • In The Fourteenth Goldfish, Ellie says that her grandfather was that goldfish to her.

    G 
  • The Gate of Ivory is set on the planet of Ivory, but gets a more proper title drop when Theodora references the classic belief that false dreams come through the Gate of Ivory and true dreams from the Gate of Horn, and how she so often gets things backwards.
  • In Golden Dawn, Herald does this whilst trying to discover if the angel has another name after finding out how long her name really is "Midwinter Sunrise When The Sun's Rays Touch The Snow-covered Mountains And Reflect The Pale, Golden Light".
  • In Gone with the Wind, Scarlett O'Hara uses the title phrase when she wonders to herself if her home on a plantation called "Tara" is still standing or if it is "gone with the wind which had swept through Georgia." (part 3, chapter 24).
  • Goodbye, Mr. Chips is about a teacher named Mr Chipping, known familiarly as "Chips". The title phrase appears at two significant points: the first time, as a familiar joke from his fiancée on the night before their wedding, and the second time, near the end of the story, from a new student who hasn't yet grasped that "Chips" is just a nickname. The second time is also significant as the last time anyone says goodbye to him before he dies.
  • Done several times in Go the Fuck to Sleep, which is about a parent trying to get their child to, well, go the fuck to sleep.
  • Go to Sleep (A Jeff the Killer Rewrite): "Go to sleep" remains as Jeff's murderous catchphrase, which he uses as a Deadly Euphemism.
    • Jeff's last words to Liu are a pleading "Please, go to sleep." after he stabs him to put him in a permanent resting place.
    • The story concludes with the words "Go to sleep" in Jeff's answer to Ben asking what to do with Randy.
      Jeff: I say it's your turn to make him go to sleep.
  • Chapter 25 of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath concludes thusly:
    The people come with nets to fish for potatoes in the river, and the guards hold them back; they come in rattling cars to get the dumped oranges, but the kerosene is sprayed. And they stand still and watch the potatoes float by, listen to the screaming pigs being killed in a ditch and covered with quicklime, watch the mountains of oranges slop down to a putrefying ooze; and in the eyes of the people there is the failure; and in the eyes of the hungry there is a growing wrath. In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage.
  • Mr. Jaggers says that Pip has "Great Expectations" upon the second time they meet.
  • The Great Ringtail Garbage Caper serves as both the title of the book AND the name of the plan the local raccoons develop to get first dibs on Gull Island's garbage supply.

    H 
  • From the moment King Solomon starts referring to the Hand of Mercy, it's clear that Helen and Clem aren't just reassembling some old angel bones.
  • Hani and Ishu's Guide to Fake Dating: The story's title is given to a document Hani and Ishu draw up to help them fake a relationship, with a number of rules. Over time, they break them all.
  • The protagonist of Heavy Metal And You by Christopher Krovatin drops the title as the only two things he has.
  • He Is Your Brother: When Mike's mother tells him to look after his autistic little brother for the day, she says, "He is your brother."
  • "As one of the survivors of the lone southern strongpoint would say later, the defense of Isabelle had been Hell In A Very Small Place."
  • In The Heroes of Olympus series, Hera/Juno does it while speaking with Jason about his destiny in the last chapter of The Lost Hero.
  • A Hole in the Fence: When Basile tells he can get Grisón through the barrier bordering the Forbidden Zone, Grisón asks whether there is a hole in the fence.
    Basile: "Normally yes, it would be impossible. But I have everything I need here."
    Grisón: "Are you going to make a hole in the fence?"
    Basile: ""There's already a hole in the fence. I am one of the few that know about it."
    Grisón: (murmuring)     "A hole in the fence…"''
  • Most of the Horatio Hornblower novels are simply named with whatever rank or ship he's at during the story. Flying Colours is an exception. Having lost his ship in the previous book (and facing a mandatory court-martial, which could end in execution), Hornblower finds himself escaping back to England on a cutter that had been captured by the French and decides he will "fly his colours to the last." Once hailed by a British ship, he replies in a routine way that is nonetheless absurd: Captain Horatio Hornblower (presumed dead for a year), of His Majesty's cutter Witch of Endor (in French hands for a year).
  • House of Leaves is the title of a book Navidson brings with him on a journey into the labyrinth. It also occurs in one of the supplementary appendices which are connected with the main narrative, as part of a poem.
  • There's a belated, sort-of Title Drop in The Hunger Games trilogy: "hunger games" and "mockingjay" appear all throughout the trilogy, but in Mockingjay, Katniss proclaims that "fire is catching". Catching Fire was the previous book.

    I 
  • I Am the Cheese: The title drop is the first person narrator's comment on the last line ("The cheese stands alone") of the Ironic Nursery Tune he has been humming to himself throughout the novel.
  • If I Fall, If I Die become the title of a movie Will makes.
  • At the very end of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, the protagonist drops the title, having been transformed into a creature incapable of ever killing himself.
  • In Philip Friedman's trial novel, Inadmissible Evidence, the main character tries to get some witness testimony admitted. After judge throws it out, and the trial is about to start, we get this nice little passage:
    The morning papers gave him even less space, mostly playing the story as an implausible allegation properly kept out of court. They seemed more willing to show their bias in favor of [the defendant] now that the trial was about to begin. Only one treated [the witness's] story as seriously as Estrada thought it deserved.
    The front page headline in Noticias Diarias said simply, PRUEBAS PROHIBITAS. Inadmissible Evidence.
  • I Need A Wee: Twice, Alan yells the book title and it takes up the whole page.
  • Inkmistress: Asra describes herself as the "inkmistress" of the king in the story's second half.
  • Mario Vargas Llosa's novel In Praise Of The Stepmother is title-dropped as the title of Alfonso's school paper about his stepmother Lucrecia.
  • In both of Paul Robinson's books In the Matter of: The Gatekeeper: The Gate Contracts and In the Matter of: Instrument of God, each chapter's title comes from a line of dialogue used in that chapter.

    J 
  • James Bond
    • While discussing their operation in Live and Let Die, Bond's CIA buddy Felix Leiter notes that they have a convention which goes "live and let live". Bond then answers that his is "live and let die".
    • In Diamonds Are Forever, Bond comes across a jewel store window which has a product that uses the title of the book as its marketing slogan.
    • The title of the short story "For Your Eyes Only" appears on a folder that is handed to Bond.
    • Done in On Her Majesty's Secret Service after Bond sends a message to M about Blofeld getting away.
      Bond watched the message go, the end of another chapter of his duties, as Marc-Ange had put it, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'.
    • Title of You Only Live Twice comes from Bond's attempt at haiku poetry.
      You only live twice:
      Once when you are born
      And once when you look death in the face
    • After blasting the rifle out of a Russian shooter's hands, the short story "The Living Daylights" ends with Bond proclaiming that he probably scared the living daylights out of her.
    • The title of For Special Services comes from an engraving in a gift that Bond receives from Felix Leiter at the end of the book.
    • A (false) war criminal in The Man from Barbarossa is referred to as such by the Judge Advocate General in his trial.
    • When M tells Bond that he has ten days to find the truth behind the various assasinations in Zero Minus Ten, Bond answers with "Zero minus ten. Plenty of time. No pressure at all."
    • The title of The Facts of Death appears on a note left to M by her lover.
    • In High Time to Kill, a villain beckons Bond to jump down to his death by telling him that "It's high time to kill, James. You first."
    • Done by Le Gérant in Never Dream of Dying as he and Bond fight in a dark cavern.
      Le Gérant: You know what they say... never dream of dying. It just might come true.
    • Goro Yoshida in The Man with the Red Tattoo is referred to as such twice in book's narrative.
    • In Carte Blanche, M mentions how Bond is used to "having carte blanche" to handle his missions as he sees fit.
    • Solo has a few mentions of Bond "going solo" once he starts going after the novel's bad guys to get personal Revenge.
    • In Trigger Mortis, the title of the book is the nickname to the failsafe feature that is used to blow up errant space rockets.
  • Jane, Unlimited: The fourth story is titled "Jane, Unlimited". The "Unlimited" part refers to the multiverse: a Limited universe tends to be restricted by strict rules, whereas in an Unlimited universe, just about anything can happen.
  • Jennifer Government (though you can see it coming from the beginning of the chapter, lessening the impact).
  • Just David: In chapter 3, when Simeon Holly and his wife find David and ask for his last name and he answers he is "just David".
    • In chapter 10, someone else asks for his last name and he answers with "just David" once again.
  • Just Juliet: At the very end, after they get back together, Lena reflects that she's got everything she needs, that is: Just Juliet.

    K 
  • All of Dennis Lehane's Kenzie and Gennaro Series novels feature this; the title of each book is dropped at some point either in character dialogue or through Patrick's narration.
  • The Kharkanas Trilogy:
    • At the end of the first book, Forge of Darkness, Caladan Brood claims that by the blood surrendered from both the goddess Mother Dark and her children, 'Darkness is forged'.
    • In Forge of Darkness there are also two on one page for the third book, Walk in Shadow. When Rise Herat contemplates the flooded city and likens Dorssan Ryl's bridges to 'where dwelt equity, hope and cherished lives', when he sees people being swept by water through the shadows of said bridges, the narration says: 'Such shadows could not be walked.' And later, when he imagines flinging himself from the Citadel's tower, his thoughts are:
      Rise Herat: Of all the falls promised me by this vantage, I will take the river. Each and every time, I will take the river. And perhaps, one day, I will walk in shadows.
  • The Killer Angels drops its title in response to the "What a piece of work is man...," quote from Hamlet.
  • Addie says, "My Grandpa always said, people like me in the past might not have been the most sociable. Or the chattiest. But while everyone else was around the fireplace gossiping, we were out finding electricity. That's what my autism is. It's A Kind of Spark."
  • The Kingkiller Chronicle: In both The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, the titles are really well done things from the book.
  • In Kiss of the Spider Woman by Manuel Puig, Molina recreates movie plots to his cell mate Valentin to pass the time. The first one is about a panther-woman who kills every man who kisses her. Later in the book, after both prisoners start having an affair and Molina is set free, Molina asks Valentin why he hasn't kissed him yet. He answers jokingly that he was afraid he'll became a panther and kill him, like the panther-woman movie, to which Molina replies that he is not a panther-woman. Valentine then says to him: "You are the spider-woman, who catches the men in her web" and Molina says that he likes that. At the end of the book, when Valentin starts having a death dream, the title is dropped again reinforced with the image of the spider-woman when he is talking with Marta.

    L 
  • From Chapter 12 of The Last Battle:
    "And then the last battle of the last king of Narnia began."
  • "The unicorn made no reply, and Schmendrick said, "She is the last. She is The Last Unicorn in the world."
  • The first book in the Left Behind series gives a title drop in advance, as the characters excitedly discuss the formation of a "Tribulation Force".
  • "George understood writing Like a Fish Understands a Tree. It cast a shadow over his life, he knew it was there, and he could do nothing about it."
  • Lilies Of The Field has the protagonist quote scripture to try to get the stingy, English-deficient mother superior to pay him for his work.
  • Livvie has written "Livvie Owen Lived Here," the only sentence she knows how to write, somewhere in every house, apartment, or trailer she has ever lived in.
  • The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet: the narration describes Hedra Ka as "a small, angry planet, surrounded by the warships of people who wanted to control it."
  • In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, Simon speaks to a "pig's head on a stick" who is referred to by the narrator as "The lord of the flies".
  • The Lord of the Rings:
    • Near the end of Return of the King Frodo reveals that he's written The Fall of the Lord of the Rings and the Return of the King.
    • When Frodo also first sees his friends after waking up in Rivendell, Pippin cheers for him and calls him "Frodo, Lord of the Ring!" Gandalf promptly scolds him.
  • The Lord Peter Wimsey short story "The Article in Question" does it twice in ten pages, combining title drop with Chekhov's Boomerang. The title is dropped for the first time already in the preamble, where "the article in question" refers to a diamond necklace. The story proper deals with two French jewel thieves. The article in question turns out to be the French definite article, which has different form for male and female. One of the thieves, while impersonating a maid, slips up and uses the male form about himself, which leads to lord Peter solving the case.
  • The Lotterys More or Less: At the end of the book, when PopCorn asks Sumac if she enjoyed their holidays, even a little bit, she replies "More or less".
  • In Loveless, each chapter's title (except for the ones in the short story Hands Against Our Hearts) appears somewhere in the chapter itself. There's also a Title Drop Chapter which ends on this line:
    Georgia's narration: I didn't want to be loveless.
  • "These were The Lovely Bones that had grown around my absence: the connections-sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent-that happened after I was gone."
  • Shelena from Loyal Enemies drops the title of the book on its last pages, in a mocking fashion:
    What did you think, that we'd just tell each other something cliché, like "Goodbye, my loyal enemy, I'll miss you" (...)?

    M 
  • The Madness Season is the portion of the Tyr life cycle where the Raayat drones gain a sense of individuality apart from the Hive Mind as they prepare to mate with the queen.
  • Magebreakers: The Flaw In All Magic:
    • Tane says that the flaw in all magic is the mage, or more specifically the mistakes in their writing that they didn't catch.
    • At the end of the book, a gnome woman calls Tane and Kadka the Magebreakers. Even with the official story (which barely mentions them), rumors are spreading and they are gaining quite a reputation.
  • Malazan Book of the Fallen:
    • Especially in the last book, The Crippled God, there are many mentions of a Book of the Fallen, but at one point both the series' and the book's titles are dropped in one sentence:
      In that Malazan Book of the Fallen, the historians will write of our suffering, and they will speak of it as the suffering of those who served the Crippled God.
    • The last book also includes excerpts from a poem titled The Malazan Book of the Fallen by Fisher kel Tath, a poet famed in-universe.
    • In the same book, the Crippled God himself resolves in his thoughts to write down the sacrifices the Malazans made to free him from his suffering, entitling the work Malazan Book of the Fallen.
    • In the third book, Memories of Ice, the phrase "memories of ice" is said by Tool during a discussion of the ancient war between the Jaghut and the T'lan Imass. The text is also peppered with it as a descriptive metaphor, indicating a sort of melancholia.
  • Marty Pants:
    • The title of the first book, "Do Not Open!" is the title of the folder where Mr. McPhee keeps his record, tests and answers, and his novel.
    • The title of the second book, "Keep Your Paws Off!" is written on the front of Erica's diary.
  • A Master of Djinn: The book title is mentioned as being one of many honorifics which Al-Jahiz had.
  • Max in The Angel Experiment, when she tells Ella's mum her full name is Maximum Ride.
  • Kate Wilhelm's "The Mile Long Spaceship": When Allan falls asleep, he travels (telepathically) to a starship that strives to explore all of known space (including other galaxies) to discover other forms of life. Of course, he thinks it's a dream, while the aliens are aware of his Psychic Powers; "the mile-long spaceship in his dream".
  • At the end of "Mimsy Were the Borogoves", Dennis Paradine discovers a page from Through the Looking Glass and recalls the verse on it, which includes the title of the story.
  • In Les Misérables:
    Besides, there is a point when the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confused in a word, a mortal word, les misérables; whose fault is it? And then, when the fall is furthest, is that not when charity should be greatest?
  • In Teresa Frohock's Miserere: An Autumn Tale, one character says "Miserere" — have mercy — as a plea for mercy for himself, and another sends a letter instructing John that a lost sheep is returning, and concludes with it Miserere.
  • Binx Bolling from The Moviegoer uses the phrase to describe people who are in on "The Search".
  • In My Dark Vanessa, Strane shows Vanessa a passage from Pale Fire: "Come and be worshiped, come and be caressed/My dark Vanessa, crimson-barred, my blest…"
  • My Sister's Keeper. While the title initially seems to refer to Anna's role as (involuntary) organ donour to her sister Kate, the actual title drop is done by Jesse, responding to a question about Anna's whereabouts with "Am I my sister's keeper?"
  • My Swordhand Is Singing contains two title drops. The first: "No, Milosh. I am not hurt," he said. "I am dying. But my swordhand is singing. I will take the sword into the village, and put an end to it." And the second: "Yes, Father. My swordhand is singing.

    N 
  • The title drop in The Name of the Rose is intentionally opaque, showing up only in an untranslated Latin epitaph in the last line in the novel: Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus. This translates roughly to "the ancient rose continues to exist through its name, yet its name is all that remains to us," a line that touches on several of the book's themes. Umberto Eco went on to say that, as a semiologist (a specialist in metaphors and symbols) he'd found that the Rose was the most used of symbols, to the point that it could be used as a symbol of almost *anything*. Meaning that it has become too charged with subtitles to actually mean anything any more. He deliberately chose the title to be the most portentous ever, but to not portent anything in particular. It is a semiotic joke, mister Moreau.
  • "Navigating Early was as challenging as navigating mysterious and uncharted waters."
  • The Neapolitan Novels: "You're my brilliant friend" near the end of the first book ("My Brilliant Friend" is the title of the first novel, and also how the entire series is generelly referred to). It's Lila who says that to Elena, while for most of the book Lila was implied to be the titular "brilliant friend" because of Elena's narration. That line reveals that both friends see each other this way.
  • The Neverending Story: "The Neverending Story" is, of course, the name of the book Bastian is reading, but within the book the phrase is first used by Gmork:
    "What are you creatures of Fantastica? Dreams, poetic inventions, characters in a neverending story."
  • In No One Needed to Know, Heidi thinks of her nosy classmates, "I hadn't told any of them things about my home life because no one needed to know. It wasn't their business."
  • Early on in Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South, Nicholas Higgins remarks, "And yet, yo' see, North and South has both met and made kind o' friends in this big smoky place".
  • Number the Stars has its title drop during the fake funeral: Peter reads from Psalm 147, which describes God as "He Who numbers the stars one by one." The protagonist Annemarie looks out the window as he says this, wondering how this is possible considering how many stars she could see.

    O 
  • "Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to One Hundred Years of Solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth."
  • Only Revolutions, in both Sam and Hailey's stories, appears towards the end of the book, as both are vowing to destroy everything because the other one has died.
  • The Orphan Train Adventures book Circle of Love: Frances Kelly tells the Orphan Train children she ecsorts to Missouri that a family doesn't need to be the parents and the children born to them - it's "a circle of love", which means "love given and love returned".
  • Greg Egan's Orthogonal trilogy is full of title drops for both the trilogy and each book, with the exception of The Clockwork Rocket (the first book), which is never stated in those words.
    • The Eternal Flame (the second book) is a hypothetical inexhaustible energy source that could be used to fuel a Perpetual Motion Machine.
    • Any given object has an "arrow of time" (the third book, though the actual title is The Arrows of Time), a four-dimensional vector that describes its path through spacetime.
    • The trilogy's title is dropped far more frequently than any of the individual book titles; Orthogonal, which is basically a fancy word for "perpendicular", is constantly used to refer to situations where something is traveling orthogonally through spacetime with respect to something else — "something else" usually being the Doomed Home Planet. note  The phrase "orthogonal matter", which is this universe's equivalent to Antimatter, is by far the most frequently used title drop.

    P 
  • The Pale King is mentioned offhand in Chapter 18.
  • The Parasol Protectorate: From book 3, Blameless:
    Lord Maccon: It looks like you managed to build your own pack, anyway, my dear. A parasol protectorate, perhaps one might say.
  • The Pendragon Adventure gets a lot of usage out of this trope, with the title usually relating to the turning point of the territory that has to be saved. It begins in the very first book, The Merchant of Death. Eccentric tradesman Figgis reveals himself to be selling tak, a deadly explosive. The Milago people are constructing it into a bomb as part of La Résistance. Cue title drop.
  • Percy Jackson and the Olympians: In The Last Olympian, the final book, the goddess Hestia tells Percy that as the guardian of the hearth, she is the last Olympian.
  • Phantastes: From the first chapter's Epigraph:
    "Phantastes from their fount all shapes deriving,
    In new habiliments can quickly dight."
    FLETCHER'S Purple Island
  • Prophecy Approved Companion: From the first sentences of the first chapter:
    Qube was an official Prophecy Approved Companion to one of the three possible saviours of the world.

    Q 
  • The Quantum Gravity series has three. The first two, Keeping It Real and Selling Out, come in the second book, in talking about what it means to be a demon: Keeping it real and never selling out. The title drop for the series as a whole finally makes sense of the series title.
    The ghost glow was gone, but she had been Jone's ship and real enough before her capture by the Fleet's massive quantum gravity, so she hadn't fallen apart yet[.]
  • In the first of Jack Chalker's Quintara Marathon trilogy, The Demons at the Rainbow Bridge, one character says: "Three highly trained teams are about to set out on a racecourse blindfolded, where they will attempt to murder one another in their quest to catch creatures that will certainly eat the winners! Yes, indeed, beings of all races! Don't dare miss—The Quintara Marathon!" To which the character's telepathic parasite responds with Shut up, Jimmy! All the individual books also include a title drop.

    R 
  • In Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman, the Ticktockman indeed tells the Harlequin to repent from his prank-laden crusade against the Schedule Fanatic society which the Ticktockman manages, but he's not having any of it.
    Ticktockman: Repent, Harlequin!
    Harlequin: Get stuffed!
  • The Reynard Cycle: The titles of the series all refer directly to Reynard, and all of them get significantly dropped close to the end of each novel.
  • The Roosevelt:
    • In Carry the Ocean, Jeremey texts Emmet, "sometimes I feel like is carrying a bucket of water but I'm trying to carry an ocean. its very hard. sometimes i would rather not carry my ocean, even if it meant I couldn't be alive."
    • In Shelter the Sea, Jeremey compares The Roosevelt Project to carrying everyone else's oceans. Emmet says, "We aren't carrying the oceans. We're helping them find places to be to carry them themselves more easily." Jeremey says, "We're trying to shelter the sea, then."

    S 
  • The events in the fantasy novel, Satyrday take place over the course of the week. Guess which day the climax falls on. No, really.
    Matthew (a satyr): I think today is Satyrday.
  • A Scanner Darkly has this line: "Does a passive infrared scanner...see into me-into us-clearly or darkly?"
  • Second Apocalypse series:
    • The title of the first book, The Darkness that Comes Before, is a phrase that comes up several times when Kellhus describes the Logos. It is all the involuntary forces outside of oneself that drive one's actions. Only a "self-moving soul" can avoid becoming a slave to the darkness that comes before action.
    • The title of the first trilogy, Prince of Nothing, is dropped by Cnaiür. He calls Kellhus "a prince of nothing" in The Darkness that Comes Before, when the latter decides to pose as a prince from Atrithau, a place so far north nobody would know more than its name.
  • Shade's Children: "Shade's Children" is mentioned as the name used for Shade's Child Soldiers who live on the submarine with him.
  • Sharpe: The last two words of every book except the last two are the title, which often requires some slightly clumsy prose.
  • The Sherlock Holmes novel A Study in Scarlet. "I might not have gone but for you, and so have missed the finest study I ever came across: a study in scarlet, eh?"
  • In Shock Point, Cassie's father Steve visits Peaceful Cove, the abusive reform school where she's being imprisoned. Father Gary calls the school "a shock point to force Cassie out of her comfort zone, to make her see what her choices have done to her and to you" to persuade Steve that Cassie's complaints of abuse are false.
  • The Sholan Alliance: Lisanne Norman has managed to write the title of each book into the character dialogue or the character's thoughts.
    • It is usually done word for word, but on at least one occasion, paraphrased.
    • For Foreshadowing, book 7's title is dropped in book 6.
  • The last five words of the novel The Silence of the Lambs are "the silence of the lambs", in reference to an intense conversation Clarice had earlier on with Lecter about witnessing lambs being slaughtered as a child.
  • In Skin of the Sea, Simi tells Kola, "When you peel back the skin of the sea, you never know what you will find."
  • The Slow Regard of Silent Things features a title drop partway through the book.
  • Title drops also occur in So I'm a Spider, So What?. In chapter 245 of the main story (WN version), the MC repeats the book title in her mind when being inquired about who she is.
  • In the second chapter of Solar Defenders: The Role of a Shield, Defender Venus sets a rather dark tone for the series when she explains to the newcomers about the Defenders, who are known to the public as the "Shield of Mankind." According to her, the role of a shield is to shield people by taking hits for them, which it continues to do until it eventually breaks and gets replaced with a new shield.
  • The Avi book Sometimes I Think I Hear My Name uses itself as the last line spoken.
  • Somewhither:
    Our world is mostly civilized these days, mostly tamed: but I knew there was wildness and weirdness out there. Where? Hither or thither or somewhere or somewhither: In elfland or outer space or beyond the walls of the world.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire, both with the series name and the individual books A Game of Thrones, A Feast for Crows and A Dance with Dragons. In the second book, Daenerys sees a vision of her dead brother Rhaegar in the House of the Undying, in which he says of his baby son Aegon "He is the Prince Who Was Promised, and his song is the song of ice and fire". Dany later discusses it with Ser Jorah, but they can't figure out what it means. note 
    • A short story describes the Pact of Ice and Fire- an alliance between the Starks and Targaryens.
    • The title drop for A Game of Thrones most famously occurs in one of Ned's chapters in which he confronts Cersei, and is the first title drop in the live action adaption. Cersei famously counters with the phrase, "In the game of thrones, you win or you die." The phrase "game of thrones" is used several times afterwards throughout the rest of the series. The first title drop is by Ser Jorah, of all people, in response to Dany's claim that the common people are praying for Viserys's return to the throne. Interestingly, while all other title drop in the thousands-of-pages-long series indicates the importance of the situation, the very first one belittles the entire thing.
      "The common people pray for rain, healthy children, and a summer that never ends," Ser Jorah told her. "It is no matter to them if the high lords play their game of thrones, so long as they are left in peace." He gave a shrug. "They never are."
    • In A Feast for Crows the title drop occurs in Asha's first chapter, although it's not a literal one: "We had one king, then five. Now all I see are crows, squabbling over the corpse of Westeros."
    • In A Dance with Dragons one character says, "Not all men were meant to dance with dragons" about Quentyn Martell after his death.
  • Lucio says, "Considering the Arch-Enemy of mankind - if half the stories reported of him be true, he must be the most piteous and pitiable figure in the Universe! What would be the sorrows of a thousand million worlds, compared to The Sorrows of Satan?"
  • In The Southern Reach Trilogy, the titles of the individual books are used in-story:
    • "Annihilation" is one of the trigger phrases used by the psychologist to activate post-hypnotic suggestions in the expedition members. It's supposed to force the listener to immediately commit suicide.
    • "Authority" is part of another code phrase, "consolidation of authority", which forces the listener to obey.
  • Spice and Wolf gets its title drop from an onlooker, with Lawrence meeting back up with Holo after requesting the spice (pepper in this case) as payment from a business arrangement. The onlooker recites a fable about a devil eating a spice merchant related to him. In the English dub of the anime adaptation, it's a bit more obvious...
    "They truly are spice and wolf!"
  • In Michael Flynn's Spiral Arm series, On the Razor's Edge has several characters musing on life on the razor's edge — a synonom for In Harm's Way.
  • Star Wars Legends:
    • An interesting variation: one of the books delivers a title drop for one of the films, when Admiral Pellaeon says: "Although you may win the occasional battle against us, Vorrik, the Empire will always strike back."
    • Matthew Stover's novelization of Revenge of the Sith tells us that "The Clone Wars have always been, in and of themselves, from their very inception, the revenge of the Sith. [...] By fighting at all, the Jedi lost."
    • In Labyrinth of Evil, Yoda uses the titular phrase to describe the state of the Clone Wars.
  • The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer Smith approaches the second variety of Title Drop, using it on the next-to-last page.
  • Stranger And Stranger has its title dropped when Ainslee infers what Oren must think of her in chapter fifteen.
  • Stranger Than Fanfiction: Mo's final line in the book, and the final line in the book.
    Mo: Definitely not, I don't care what Cash said on the first day in the car-everything that's happened to us this summer, well... it's all been stranger than fanfiction.
  • Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald" has a title drop, when describing the murder scene of an Eldritch Abomination's son.
  • Swan's Braid & Other Tales of Terizan:
    • In "Swan's Braid" Swan's braid is an item she wears that Terizan tries to steal as a test. It's specifically her "life-braid", a good luck charm. It's called this before she tries multiple times.
    • In "The Lions of Al'Kalamir" the lions of Al'Kalamir are mentioned several times. It's revealed they are the warring princes themselves.
  • Happens in every single book of the Sword of Truth series, except for Soul of the Fire (a title which, incidentally, can't really refer to anything in the book. There is a fire spirit, but it's explicitly described as not having a soul). It gets slightly varied, as the Blood of the Fold of the third book were first mentioned in the second, and the last title, Confessor, as it's the title of one of the main characters, had been in common usage in the books since the first one.

    T 
  • In-universe, The Tenets of Futilism is a book outlining the Futilistic cult authored by its leaders, which are the parents of one of the protagonists.
  • The title of the series Terra Ignota is dropped by Vivien Ancelet at the beginning of book three, The Will to Battle. Ancelet tells Ockham Saneer to plead terra ignota in the upcoming trial because what the O.S. did was, while morally questionable and murder by most Hive's laws, strictly speaking for the protection of the Humanist Hive. Pleading terra ignota means saying "I did the deed, but I do not myself know whether it was a crime. Arm thyself well for this trial, young polylaw; here at the law's wild borders there be dragons."
  • That Hideous Strength has this: "No power that is merely earthly," he continued at last, "will serve against the Hideous Strength."
  • "They seemed to be staring at the dark, but Their Eyes Were Watching God."
  • In These Words Are True and Faithful, the pastor quotes these words from the Book of Revelation during Saul Overton's funeral. Just about everything that the pastor says is anything but.
  • A great one happens in the short novel/novella They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, where the title is used in the last chapter as an explanation for why the main character shot his depressed girlfriend who couldn't kill herself—he had to put her out of her misery. (Don't worry, not a spoiler, it's the first thing in the book.)
  • Third Time Lucky: And Other Stories of the Most Powerful Wizard in the World: In "And Who Is Joah?" Magdelene replies with this question after Joah gives her name.
  • Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis, waits until the final chapter to mention the title, making its meaning clear by context.
    • The book's Working Title was actually "Bareface" (the main character goes veiled through most of the book). His editor objected that people would think the book was a western. (Lewis observed that he didn't think that would hurt sales.) So the title was pulled from that line in the last chapter.
  • Time Scout: The first and third books don't count, as the first, Time Scout names the profession that is the focus of the series and the third, Ripping Time names the period of time that is the focus of the last two books. The third, Wagers of Sin is only dropped in the description on the back cover. The last one, The House That Jack Built is dropped in the epilogue in a rather gratuitous fashion.
  • To Kill a Mockingbird: Heard in a tale Atticus relates over dinner. If it weren't for the use of the title drop, his tale would seem unimportant at the time, but it turns out to be a metaphor for one of the major themes.
  • Trans boy Bug thinks, "Trying to picture myself as a teenage girl is like staring at the sun, Too Bright to See, and it hurts."
  • Tortall Universe: Most of the that are spoken in the text are nothing out of the ordinary, but some do have thematic significance.
    • Song of the Lioness: The third book, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, is a title that the Bazhir give former Sweet Polly Oliver Alanna when she becomes their shaman. She takes exception and says that women and men aren't all that different—men just have more ego.
    • Protector of the Small: The individual books have Exactly What It Says on the Tin titles, but throughout the quartet we see Kel helping and protecting various defenseless people or animals. In the final book, she's finally called "the Protector of the Small" by a seer who foretold her coming to Scanra to save refugee children. Kel finds it a bit of an Embarrassing Nickname.
    • Beka Cooper: Every book is titled after a breed of dog, which the Provost's Guard is nicknamed after. Beka, the protagonist, ends up nicknamed as each of them — "Terrier" for not letting go of cases nobody expected to solve, "Bloodhound" for following the trail of counterfeit cash relentlessly, and finally "Mastiff" for hunting down the abducted prince and the traitors who plotted to kill him.
  • The Tribe: A New Dawn begins and ends with different characters watching the sunrise.
  • Stephenie Meyer's Twilight books do this in every single book, making the whole series' titles into an Anvilicious metaphor for Bella's life: i.e. When she meets Edward, her life descends into twilight; when he leaves her, her world becomes dark in New Moon; The Volturi/fear eclipse everything else in Eclipse; and Breaking Dawn is when everything is working out all right. In the Swedish editions the title drops are inevitable, since the Swedish title of every book in the series is a quote from said book. The Short Life of Bree Tanner is the only exception; it was translated without any changes.
    • The title drop in Eclipse is more blatant. Bella calls Jacob her personal sun, balancing out the clouds of her depression, but says that she's choosing Edward. Jacob replies that he can handle the clouds, but that he can't fight an Eclipse.

    U 
  • In the companion book to the Uglies series, Bogus to Bubbly, which explained many things that were left out of the series, Word of God states that the last word of each book was the name of the next book. Scott Westerfeld says that the first two were unintentional, though.
    • The first two? There are only three books in the series, so the last words of the first two would be the only relevant ones. Unless you're including Extras...
    • More specifically, the last word of "Uglies" is "pretty", the last word of "Pretties" is "special", and the last word of "Specials" is "ugly". Considering Tally's Character Development, these could be considered Arc Words.
      • The last word of "Extras" is "cake." Make of that what you will.

    W 
  • Warbreaker: The Returned are people who have died and have been resurrected, and are worshiped as gods by the Hallandrens. They are given names by the priests, which are supposed to be prophetic. Names include Lightsong the Bold, Blushweaver the Beautiful, and Peacegiver the Merciful. At the very end of the book, it's revealed that Vasher's first name was Warbreaker the Peaceful.
  • Dan Abnett carefully drops titles in most of his Warhammer 40,000 novels. Notably, the Gaunt's Ghosts series and the Eisenhorn books.
  • Warrior Cats:
    • In the prologue for the fifth book of Power of Three, Rock makes a reference to "the power of three". In Sign of the Moon, which isn't even in the Power of Three series, when Jayfeather realizes that Lion's Roar and Dove's Wing are past incarnations of Lionblaze and Dovewing, he says that the "Power of Three" (capitalized like a title) has begun.
    • In Omen of the Stars, Yellowfang mentions "an Omen of the Stars" (also capitalized like a title) in the prologue of the very first book.
    • There are no less than three echo related metaphors used in Fading Echoes.
    • The Last Hope takes the cake. It gets dropped at least five times in the book, two of them from the prologue alone.
    • In The Place of No Stars, since the title of the book is the name of a location where a lot of the action takes place, the book's title comes up several times.

  • Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series takes each of its titles from the text of the book, usually from dialog between characters but occasionally from description; there is also quite often an excerpt from the Prophecies of the Dragon at the beginning or end of the book that does a title drop. The individual chapters within the books follow the same trend, though more loosely, often referring to an event or location which is not described in the exact phrasing as the chapter title. The ninth book, Winter's Heart, is in many ways a crux to the entire series, and this is foreshadowed in that the title phrase appears somewhere in almost every book in the series.
  • Hem shouts "Who moved my cheese?" after there is no cheese left in Cheese Station C.
  • The title question in Agatha Christie's Why Didn't They Ask Evans? is the last thing spoken by the murder victim. The significant title drop doesn't come until near the end, however, when the heroine finds herself asking the very same question.
  • The Seymours' estate Wolf Hall is mentioned a few times towards the end of Wolf Hall, its name being a metaphor for the Tudor court as a whole as well as an indication of what will happen in the sequel.
  • In The Worst Thing About My Sister, Marty often says, "the worst thing about my sister is...".

    Y 
  • Young Bond
    • The stolen documents that Bond and Precious chase after in Hurricane Gold are referred to as such by El Huracán. In his words, hurricane gold was what Mayans called treasure that brought misfortune to anyone possessing it.
    • In By Royal Command, Bond comes across two little girls in a predicament, as their shuttlecock flew into a tree. He helps them out, and later learns that they were actually the two daughters of the Duke of York, much to his associate Dandy O'Keefe's amusement, who quips how Bond is now "by Royal Command".

    Z 
  • In Zero History by William Gibson, Defence Criminal Investigative Service agent Winnie Tung Whittaker is telling Milgrim how little of a trail he has left over the years: "Zero history as far as Choice Point is concerned. Means you haven't even had a credit card for ten years."
  • In Zomboy, a video of Imre lifting and carrying a school bus into a parking lot was posted on the net. The video was titled "Zomboy Lifts Bus".

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