dennis scharnberg

“How bad are things out your way, Bobby?”

“Bad enough.”

Alberta Traywick,  Susannah’s Accident.

“…a fist was formed.  And a face was struck with it.  Again and again.”  So Andrew confessed, in his own peculiar way, to the unprovoked assault on Mr. Merriwether.

Silas Burbage,  The Adventurous Half-Life of Buddy Boyo.

“…oh it was something something something about the naked savages of Williamsburg.”

Lawrence Bird,  Make It So.

He tried to be an “interesting” person.  All summer long.  Night and day.  And just as soon as he had begun to see some degree of success in that regard….

Roone Giddings,  An Arrangement of Particles.

We are no longer able to be aware of next winter.  To allow it to affect us.  Today.

Mills Verbruggen,  The Isle of Dogs.

How, they wonder, could anything possibly differ from their conception of it?

Evelyn Harbuckle,  The Signs of Belonging.

“But what kind of woman was she, Hudson?”

“Dishonest.  She was a dishonest woman.”

Michael Longmire,  Puzzled to Death.

“Well, you know, he was playing the 78s again.  All the old platters.  When I walked in, it was something about the ‘low and lonesome sea.’  I believe it was the Carter Family.”

Kiefer Sythe,  Detective Club.

A criterion is window-dressing.

Godfrey Tooke,  Collected Aphorisms.

“It’s not that they lie, Jack.  It’s that lying becomes a way of life.”

Mark Anthony,  The Tale of the Mirror.