So one of the (at the time) drawbacks of my UK education was that we had to learn poems off by heart for the English Lit. exam. At the time I thought it was just about the most boring part of the curriculum, but now they're a treasure trove of password sources...
Example (no, I don't use this one). One of the poems we had to learn was "Dulce Et Decorum Est"...
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
"The old lie" being "It is a great and glorious thing to die in the service of one's country". Anyway, take the N'th character of every line - easiest is the first, until you get the number of characters you need. It's easy to remember if you know the poem, it gives you a completely unintelligible password, and it's easy to make a password hint that's opaque to pretty much everyone but you.
Has worked for me for ages. (I'm very old, compared to you yound whippersnappers hanging around /. recently).
Simon