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| Whenever an art history survey, like Janson's History of Art or Gardner's Art Through the Ages adds a female author, the number of women artists included - white and of color - miraculously increases. [The Guerrilla Girls,The Guerrilla Girls' Bedside Companion to the History of Western Art,1998,locate] |
| The little blonde at the PBX cocked a shell-like ear and smiled a small fluffy smile. She looked playful and eager, but not quite sure of herself, like a new kitten in a house where they don't care much about kittens. [Raymond Chandler,The Lady in the Lake,1943,locate] |
| Not caring about the social ostracism, thinking only about the wonderful girl who had outdriven him, shown him her tail, between Abbeville and Montreuil, James Bond leant slightly forward. He tossed two of the precious pearly plaques into the centre of the table. He said, with a slightly bored, slightly puzzled intonation, 'Forgive me. Madame has forgotten that we agreed to play in partnership this evening.' And, not looking at the girl, but speaking with authority to the Chef de Jeu, 'I beg your pardon. My mind was elsewhere. Let the game continue.' [Ian Fleming,On Her Majesty's Secret Service,1963,locate] |
| Each of us had been strung out trying to save oursleves, fighting against going really psychotic like Eddie or really killing ourselves by leaping from real buildings and splattering on a real parking lot eight stories below. We knew that it could have been any of us. Lethal, this becoming and being a doctor! Denying hope and fear, ritualized defenses pulled up around ears like turtlenecks, these doctors, to survive, had become machines, sealed off from humans--from wives, kids, parents--from the warmth of compassion and the thrill of love. [Samuel Shem,The House of God,1978,locate] |
| The maid in the lime-colored panties... was the most virtuous woman alive: she laid for everybody, regardless of race, creed, color or place of national origin, donating herself sociably as an act of hospitality, procrastinating not even for the moment it might take to discard the cloth or broom or dust mop she was clutching at the time she was grabbed. Her allure stemmed from her accessibility; like Mt. Everest, she was there, and the men climbed on top of her each time they felt the urge. [Joseph Heller,Catch-22,1955,locate] |
| From the photograph that not long ago he draped with mourning crêpe the faded eyes still twinkle at him, the plump mouth crimped into its winsome pout. 'Brush Mamma's hair, dearie,' a murmur faintly begs. The hair is thick and grey on the pale powdered back, and the blue ribbon is laid out ready on the dressing-table. [William Trevor,Felicia's Journey,1994,locate] |
| I looked back at the picnic table in the shade of the pines where the two women were still absorbed in their conversation. The dog sat beside them, his eyes riveted on the remaining ham sandwiches, a study in canine optimism. [Suzanne North,Seeing is Deceiving,1996,locate] |
| Miles Cabot, the radio genius, lived in the palace of King Kew, with the lovely princess whom he had won as a bride, Lilla, fairest of all the women of Cupia. White skinned she was, with rose-petal cheeks. Her eyes were sapphire-blue, and her short curly hair was the color of spun gold. Slim she was, and lithe as a fairy, which resemblance was enhanced by two tiny iridescent wings upon her back, and two butterfly-antennae which projected from her forehead. [Ralph Milne Farley,The Radio Beasts,1925,locate] |
| Every house was hung with red and bedecked with flags and motoes. The streets were lined with raised seats on either side, and I passed along, bowing this way and that, under a shower of cheers, blessings, and waving handkerchiefs. The balconies were full of gayly dressed ladies, who clapped their hands and courtesied and threw their brightest glances at me. A torrent of red roses fell on me; one bloom lodged in my horse's mane, and I took it and stuck it in my coat. [Anthony Hope,The Prisoner of Zenda,1894,locate] |
| My innocent little visitor slowly sank to a half- sitting position upon my knee. Her adorable profile, parted lips, warm hair were some three inches from my bared eyetooth; and I felt the heat of her limbs through her rough tomboy clothes. [Vladimir Nabokov,Lolita,1955,locate] |
| "There's no going back from a killing, Bob. Right or wrong, the brand sticks and there's no going back. It's up to you now. Go home to your mother and father. Grow strong and straight and take care of them. Both of them." [Jack Schaefer,Shane,1949,locate] |
| Sexually the naked ape finds himself today in a somewhat confusing situation. As a primate he is pulled one way, as a carnivore by adoption he is pulled another, and as a member of an elaborate civilized community he is pulled yet another. [Desmond Morris,The Naked Ape,1967,locate] |
| She was no longer a ship which contained a mixed collection of human beings. For good or bad, she was one with the men who served her, as if the short, fierce fight had welded them all together into an entity of purpose and survival. [Alexander Kent,Enemy In Sight,1970,locate] |
| There was a moment of silence, and then a scratching sound as a new recording came on, and Miss Gladys Stevens of Omaha, Nebraska, said quietly, "There are now three minutes to atomic self-destruct." [Michael Crichton,The Andromeda Strain,1969,locate] |
| The bed was occupied by Maggie and Belinda, both sitting upright, both looking very fetching in very attractive nightdresses which appeared to consist mainly of holes. But I'd more urgent problems on my mind at the moment than the way in which some night-wear manufacturers skimped on their material. [Alistair MacLean,Puppet on a Chain,1969,locate] |
| Got any dragons you need killed? [Robert A. Heinlein,Glory Road,1963,locate] |
| At last, leaning from her saddle, Nakhla placed a cool palm upon his forehead with a tenderness that was unmistakably a caress. Close to his ear came her lips, and a sudden flush mantled her cheeks. "Azîz," she whispered. "Thou art Nakhla's azîz," and then she was away as fast as El Djebel could bear her. [Edgar Rice Burroughs,The Lad and the Lion,1917,locate] |
| All day the sky had been gray and by this time, with all the light fading, the streams of blood on the limbs of the three on their crosses were just long black streaks, and I could no longer read the lettering "King of the Jews" over the mocking crown of thorns. [Morley Callaghan,A Time For Judas,1983,locate] |
| Pippin might well have slept through the night and into the next day had not the anti-aircraft batteries disposed about Paris fired a royal salute at two-thirty in the morning. Five citizens were killed and thirty-two were wounded by the fallback. The thirty-two wounded made loyal and enthusiastic statements from their hospital beds. [John Steinbeck,The Short Reign of Pippin IV,1957,locate] |
| Hard and earnest space floated arrays to the astute city. Restricted magnitude unifying frontiers. An epigrammatic and soft ambiguity gazed similarly. Besides, the heavy ring munching the recursion. This idea is soft precisely. The astute timetables asserted the censors. The heavy and adoring genius unifying by unbroken chains, mentally. [R.S. Pearson,Rubber Blue Biodegradable Robot,1985-2000] |
| I silently sack up my dead and withdraw to the woods. I eat and laugh and eat until I can barely walk, my chest-hair matted with dribbled blood, and then the roosters on the hill crow, and dawn comes over the roofs of the houses, and all at once I am filled with gloom again. [John Gardner,Grendel,1971,locate] |
| The men came after him, their boots striking heavy on the dusty ground, and the women came too, with their hair flying and the stones in their hands. Soames fell down the bank into the shallow river. The men and women went down and covered him the way flies cover a piece of offal after a butchering, and their hands rose and fell. [Leigh Brackett,The Long Tomorrow,1955,locate] |
| So my analysis of hundreds of cases of occupational incompetence led me to formulate The Peter Principle: IN A HIERARCHY EVERY EMPLOYEE TENDS TO RISE TO HIS LEVEL OF INCOMPETENCE [Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull,The Peter Principle,1969,locate] |
| In a laboratory situation, when your whole procedure goes haywire, when everything goes wrong or is indeterminate or is so screwed up by unexpected results you can't make head or tail out of anything, you start looking laterally. [Robert M. Pirsig,Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance,1974,locate] |
| "What a long time life takes!" said Clarice at last. "Sometimes I think it's hardly worth encroaching on." [Mervyn Peake,Gormenghast,1950,locate] |
| O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, say unto the cities of Judah, behold, behold, the glory of the Lord, of the Lord, the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. [George Frideric Handel,Messiah,1741,locate] |
| Amy Spillard, aged five, dares to clamber up the arch and tiptoe along its crest. She looks like a girl- ghost in an enchanted garden a hundred years ago. [Andy Goldsworthy and David Craig,Arch,1999,locate] |
| I am so glad you did not forget to write to me again this year. The number of children who keep up with me seems to be getting smaller. I expect it is because of this horrible war, and that when it is over things will improve again, and I will be as busy as ever. [J.R.R. Tolkien,The Father Christmas Letters,1920-1939,locate] |
| He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp. A cry followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on, staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I looked there came, I thought, a change--he seemed to swell-- his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and alter--and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped back against the wall, my arms raised to shield me from that prodigy, my mind submerged in terror. [Robert Louis Stevenson,Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,1886,locate] |
| You know how it is - not a pain, or even a touch, but just a feeling as though something has been taken away. I felt rather than heard, a slight snap, and instinctively clapped my right fist to my hip. There was a movement that was not the motion of marching; and for a few seconds I knew real paralysing terror. On of my kilt buckles, wrenched in the hurry of dressing, had given way. There was a second one, of course, but was it fastened properly? I knew, with horrifying certainty, that if I removed my fist that vast, silent crowd would be treated to the edifying sight of a Highland officer marching in his shirt- tail while his kilt collapsed in ruins about his ankles. In that moment I really wanted to die. [George MacDonald Fraser,The General Danced at Dawn,1970,locate] |
| Yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye Crabalocker fishwife pornographic priestess Boy you been a naughty girl You let your knickers down I am the eggman, they are the eggmen I am the walrus, goo goo goo joob [John Lennon and Paul McCartney,I Am the Walrus,1967,locate] |
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