“The indeterminate future beckons, my dear Lydia. You must needs approach it, and look it close in the eye.”
Samuel Wedder, The Adventuress. (1763)
“…and that’s where I stumbled upon the dead man.”
“Dead man?”
“Yes.”
“And only one?”
“Just one. Yes.”
Allison Cowling, Night of the Detective.
Yes, it appears to be a labyrinth. But since it is only a text, it is not a labyrinth. We cannot be truly lost in mere words. No monster—no Minotaur— awaits us in words. Nevertheless, thank you professor Derrida!
Octavius Kinder, A Sustainable Unhappiness.
Sondra was convinced that irony could work only one way—to mock anything traditional. No one (she was sure of it) would even think of mocking modernity.
Mark Anthony, The Tale of the Mirror.
Pursuing excellence was the subject, and Barnaby found himself wondering if it would be possible to engage in that with only middling results.
Lane Vivian, A Knob of Old Cheese and Ten Short Tales.
“…all we have to do is explain why we have no evidence for it and why we cannot replicate it in experiments.”
Kiefer Sythe, The Detective Club.
“Apparently Cordelia has convinced him that honesty is overrated.”
Thaddeus Crewes, The Seven Long Years.
Beverly let the adjectives repeat and multiply and fly through the air. It was all “vivid” and “iconic” and “striking” and “gorgeous.” And it was inescapable.
Jason Starling, ed., Adventures in Narrative Parsimony.
“This professor,” said Mr. Hock, “was rambling and obfuscating and sometimes muttering. Occasionally, at least, it seemed to concern something he called the geometry of whiteness.”
Everson Dwight, Theory of Machines, a Novel.
Near the top of Will Chatham’s list of “desires in life” stood this one: to be admired.
Victoria Salt, A Compendium of Opening Lines.
