All at once, an eruption of speech, Mr. Troy bursts out. "Would you--care to pray?" As though he were asking me for the next dance. "I've held out this long," I reply. "I may as well hold out a while longer." [Margaret Laurence,The Stone Angel,1964,locate] |
Then something caught his ankle. Off balance, he full full-length to the rough stone floor, kicking wildly to free his leg from that bony grip. He stared down and felt his blood freeze when he saw the severed hand of the corpse clutching his foot. Its bony claws bit into his flesh. Then a grisly shape of nightmare horror and lunacy loomed over him. The broken, mangled face of the corpse leered down into his, and one claw-hand darted towards his throat. [Lin Carter and L. Sprague de Camp,The Thing in the Crypt,1967,locate] |
Better to die quickly. With one leap the sword is in my hand, my palm curves around it like an old friend. Sick, drunk, my body remembering what I do not, I fall into what I later know to be the classic pattern of defense. I use both hands on the sword; they are still manacled together and I have no choice. With a howl of rage he raises his own sword, and I--sick, drunk, manacled--I split his skull. [Marion Zimmer Bradley,Warrior Woman,1985,locate] |
Somewhere a department-store Santa Claus was ho-ho-ho-ing into a PA system, and the amplified sound was not jolly, but somehow ominous, the laughter of a maniac who had come in the night not with presents but with a meat cleaver. [Stephen King,Christine,1983,locate] |
The work and the worry that fell to my lot through the practical interest I took in organ building, made me sometimes wish that I had never troubled myself about it, but if I do not give it up, the reason is that the struggle for the good organ is to me a part of the struggle for truth. And when on Sundays I think of this or that church in which a noble organ is sounding because I saved it from an ignoble one, I feel myself richly rewarded for all the time and trouble which in the course of over thirty years I have sacrificed in the interests of organ building. [Albert Schweitzer (trans C.T. Campion) ,Out of my Life and Thought,1931,locate] |
As they realized themselves in varying degrees, few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenious, more movingly lovely, and, as it might happen, more savage, than the girls of slender means. [Muriel Spark,The Girls of Slender Means,1963,locate] |
The brothers went to their modest, accustomed dinner in the refectory, and observed, whatever their own feelings were, the discipline of silence. [Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) ,The Pilgrim of Hate,1984,locate] |
I have words to offer wisdom And pictures to delight, A story of a tragic Queen And a fearless knight. But my name remains a secret It's hidden here within, If you can but find it More treasure you might win. [Kit Williams,Untitled (a.k.a. "The Bee Book"),1984,locate] |
When she regained her composure, she earnestly instructed me never to speak of the events of the last few minutes. And should my parents ask about the doll, I was to say I knew nothing. Usually I would have been shocked to have Ashraf ask me to lie. Not, however, on this occasion, for I had glimpsed the dusty gray bandages that swathed the face of the figure in our doorway. [Nick Bantock,The Egyptian Jukebox,1993,locate] |
"Therefore I thank you for pointing out my error, and at the same time I feel certain that you will, by the love you bear me, excuse my gross ignorance and as many other flaws as find expression in my character. I readily concede that you are the one to correct and advise me in all matters, just as I desire you to do and would so appreciate your doing, for I realize how little knowledge and ability I can justly call my own." [Suor Marie Celeste (Virginia Galilei, daughter of Galileo Galilei) quoted and translated by (Dava Sobel) ,Galileo's Daughter,1999,locate] |
Most of the doctrines propounded in Calvin's Institutes and all the doctrines embodied in the decrees and canons of the Council of Trent had coexisted peacefully in the Middle Ages. Intellectual clerics could and did debate them, question them, believe them, and defend them. In a word, all the bits and pieces that were to make up Protestantism and Catholicism were in solution in medieval thought. [Eugene F. Rice, Jr. and Anthony Grafton,The Foundations of Early Modern Europe, 1460-1559, 2nd edition,1994,locate] |
It seemed to him that the pale and lovely Summoner out there smiled at him and beckoned; as though, with the hand he lifted from his hip, he pointed outward as he hovered on before into an immensity of richest expectation. And, as so often before, he rose to follow. [Thomas Mann (trans H.T. Lowe-Porter) ,Death in Venice,1911,locate] |
Then all day he was to pace the streets with hundreds and thousands of other homeless wretches, inquiring at stores, warehouses, and factories for a chance; and at night he was to crawl into some doorway or underneath a truck, and hide there until midnight, when he might get into one of the station houses, and spread a newspaper upon the floor, and lie down in the midst of a throng of "bums" and beggars, reeking with alcohol and tobacco, and filthy with vermin and disease. [Upton Sinclair,The Jungle,1906,locate] |
For no reason that he can imagine, she's reached toward his living body and offered herself. [Carol Shields,Larry's Party,1997,locate] |
'I don't want to be pope anymore,' I said. 'I want to be Jesus Christ.' My mother laughed. 'It's too late for that. When the angel came your mother was already in bed with St. Joseph.' [Nino Ricci,Lives of the Saints,1990,locate] |
The girls in these commercials are always great friends, and they are always gentle and generous, budding communitarians, fantasy kibbutzniks, although with consumerist flair. They love, love, love each other, almost as much as they love the object that has brought them together. Whatever else the producers of these commercials may have been, one thing is clear: they were never girls. Or if they were, they've grown up to have a serious sadistic streak to them. Giving a girl the impression that girlhood is an extended bounce on Barney's knee is like prepping a young gazelle for life on the Serengeti by dipping it in cream. [Natalie Angier,Woman: An Intimate Geography,2000,locate] |
First Witch: When shall we three meet again In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Second Witch: When the hurlyburly's done, When the battle's lost and won. Third Witch: That will be ere the set of sun. First Witch: Where the place? Second Witch: Upon the heath. Third Witch: There to meet with Macbeth. First Witch: I come, Graymalkin! Second Witch: Paddock calls. Third Witch: Anon. ALL: Fair is foul, and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air. [William Shakespeare,The Tragedy of Macbeth,1600-1608,locate] |