dennis scharnberg

always building towers

Leslie—like so many others of his generation—came to regard Hegel as the philosopher who really cared.

Jason Starling, ed., Adventures in Narrative Parsimony.

hold your horses

“Poor Alfred. He had to tell the whole thing. From the beginning. Again.”

J. Pinkerton, Captain Karl’s Bluff. (1935)

expressing their sadness

Analysis is destruction.

Gilbert Ravening, The Phantom of Mechanical Consistency.

woof and warp

The material world is a solid realm, for as long as it exists. But it only barely does exist, from one moment to the next.

Gilbert Ravening, The Phantom of Mechanical Consistency.

literally literal literalness

Something shone and glittered from a high limb. And up the wobbly old ladder went Dad Rawlings, until before him lay a small gold coin resting on the ragged bark. And two others alongside it, of silver. “This shouldn’t be,” he said, quite aloud.

Miles Bantry, ed., Mr. Roode’s Rustic Tales.

fine and dandy

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” whispered Mr. Tomlin. To himself.

Dickinson Holmes, The Book of Shoes.

old bill jones

“Now that is someone who really cared.”

“Who? Who cared, dear? Who really cared?”

“Dr. Sigmund Freud. That’s who.”

Adrian Caliban, The Magnificent Egglestons.

happy resentment parade

World: a pretext for having mass media.

Nathaniel Bumppo, The Final Word.

assessing body language

In a degenerate society, blackmail encounters a problem. Simply stated, the society reaches a point in degradation where nothing—no particular act—is revolting enough to offer blackmail value.

Desmond Urquhart, The Unsocial Sciences.

inducing more resentment

“But how did Palmer come to be the one who knows? How did that happen? Was he born that way? Born already knowing?”

Dickinson Holmes, The Book of Shoes.