- 1Q84: While waiting in a taxi, Aomame compares herself to Faye Dunaway in TheThomasCrownAffair. Not long after she thinks this, the taxi driver makes the same comparison.
- In Airborn novel Starclimber, the first time James Sanderson is mentioned, Matt says "Let me guess: the heir to the Sanderson fortune." Throughout the book, nearly every time Sanderson is mentioned, a different character will refer to him as "the heir to the Sanderson fortune".
- In the Amelia Peabody mystery book The Deeds of the Disturber, Emerson examines a threatening note and proclaims (in a very Sherlock Holmes-esque way) that he can tell from the handwriting it was written 'by a man of education with a pen that needed mending'. Amelia understandably writes this off as complete nonsense. Enter their son Ramses...who then proceeds to make exactly the same comment, much to Amelia's annoyance.
- In the first chapter of Constance Verity Destroys the Universe, Ellington asks what "that smell" is (ox, raw fish and general B.O. from Connie's latest adventure), Connie merely answers "destiny." An investigation and brief car-chase later, Connie makes it to a gathering with Tia, Hiro, Byron and their families and Tia remarks that she "smells like destiny."
- In Dead Beat, Harry hears about how the Merlin used one ward to hold off the entire Red Court, and thinks to himself 'I guess you don't become the Merlin by collecting bottle caps'. Ramirez, a fellow Warden, hears about the same event later. He verbally makes the same comparison as Harry. This amuses Harry.
- Dave Barry's column "1987: Look Back in Horror" reports that, in a routine questionnnaire, 63% of America's air traffic controllers stated that their primary career goal was "to defeat the forces of the planet Wambeeno".
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
- The Guide describes the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes" (with a footnote stating the Guide will welcome anyone looking to take over the post of robotics corespondent). The narrator then goes on to state that, according to a copy of their rival, the Encyclopedia Galactica, which had fallen through a time warp from a thousand years in the future, described the Marketing Division of Sirius Cybernetics as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were first against the wall when the revolution came".
- In Life, the Universe and Everything, Arthur Dent is stranded on prehistoric Earth, and an immortal alien approaches him just to tell him: "You're a jerk, Dent, a complete kneebiter." Dent then time-travels to modern-day England, where a little boy says the same thing to him.
- At several points in the Jason X novelization characters think something along the lines of "And then I won't be the only one not getting laid".
- Terry Pratchett uses this trope again in Johnny and the Dead. When asked who invented the telephone, Bigmac replies "Sir Humphrey Telephone?" Completely unrelated, the Dead discuss the telephone, and one of them mentions thinking it was invented by Sir Humphrey Telephone.
- In The Red Pyramid, Sadie finds a book on her shelf that teaches you to summon the five basic elements-earth, fire, air, water, and cheese. Later, one of Thoth's shabti tries to cast elemental magic, and shouts "Fire! Wind! Water! Cheese!"
- In The Little Prince, the narrator recalls that when he was a child he tried to draw a giant boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant, and all the adults mistook it for a hat. When he reproduces the drawing for the titular Little Prince, the Prince manages to recognize what it's supposed to be without being told.
- Discworld:
- In The Science of Discworld 2: The Globe, Hex instructs Rincewind and Ponder Stibbons to disguise the Librarian (an ape) with a dress while standing on the Luggage (a chest) when going to Elizabethan England, because the English will think that he is a Spanish lady. When they find the wizards that had gotten stuck in England, the first question they ask is "Who is the Spanish lady?".
- In Unseen Academicals, the non-too-bright Trev wants to ask Juliet out, and he plans to do so by sending her a letter saying, "I think you're really fit. I really fancy you. How about a date? No hanky-panky, I promise." His more literate friend Nutt suggests that something more might be needed, and helpfully composes a long love poem for Trev to give to Juliet. However, Juliet — who isn't all too clever either — can't understand a word of Nutt's overly articulate poem, and so asks her more literate friend, Glenda, to explain it to her. Glenda reads the poem, thinks for a bit, and then translates it as, "he thinks you're really fit, he really fancies you, how about a date, no hanky-panky, he promises." note
- In The One and Only Ivan, Ivan the gorilla feels a bond with Julia, as a fellow artist. As a thoughtful and sensitive ten-year-old, she's more capable than most humans at understanding not just his art but his feelings. He still has to get angry to get her to pay enough attention to interpret his collage, and is frustrated by how long she takes to piece together the meaning of it - normally he paints things in his domain, so making a collage of paintings conveying something rather more complex in intention is unusual.
- In A Series of Unfortunate Events novel The Slippery Slope, the Baudelaires have to open a "Vernacularly Fastened Door," which requires three passwords that need to be typed in. The clues for two of these passwords have pretty objective, Crossword Puzzle-style answers, but the third is "the central theme of Anna Karenina." Klaus's answer ("A rural life of moral simplicity, despite its monotony, is the preferable personal narrative to a daring life of impulsive passion, which only leads to tragedy") is word-for-word accurate.
- In Shaman Blues, Witkacy and Konstancja both get the idea to enter and search Tadeusz's home at almost the same moment, despite not contacting each other until Konstancja enters the apartment while Witakcy's already rummaging through it.
- Star Wars Legends:
- In Star Wars: Kenobi, Ben and Annileen both separately joke that his beat-up cooling unit must be thousands of years old, by referencing events and people from that era of the Legends timeline.
- Watching the climax of Star Wars: Scoundrels from the roof of the target's mansion, Imperial Agent Dayja thinks it looks "like something out of an insane holodrama." One change of point-of-view later, Han, who planned the heist to go pretty much exactly that way, has the same thought.
- Tress of the Emerald Sea: When Tress and Charlie realize their feelings for each other, each independently likens the other to a good pair of gloves — a comfortable, perfect fit for them. Charlie vocalizes it first; Tress emotionally cuts in that she understands what he means.
- In To Say Nothing of the Dog, one character, prone to malapropisms, writes about a "firugeal urn". At another point, Ned makes reference to the same object, also calling it a "firugeal urn". All well and good, except that Ned thought the phrase instead of saying it, and he said it first. Casual readers assume that he was referring back to the letter, but that's impossible unless he were actually a time-traveling agent from further in the future, with deliberately implanted false memories.
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