—“What is it? What is it there, mum?”
—“It is prettiness. It is prettiness in a box,” came the reply.
Lana Dowling, The Mystery of the Dull Parcels.
Harold thinks that he is in a movie, with himself in the starring role. And he thinks this all day long. Every day.
Anselm Bligh, A Collection of Miniatures.
“Our inability to foresee consequences is well-established,” muttered Williams.
Giles Coxe-Coburn, Tooth and Claw.
How difficult it must be for them! To dwell with their irreducible and relentless sophistication.
Trent Bendix, Patricia Knows Best.
A distraught journalist informed us that he could not find the words to say what he thereupon proceeded to tell us.
Jane Chetwynde, The Have-Not Faradays.
milli-Helen: a unit of measurement that indicates the amount of feminine facial beauty necessary to launch one ship.
Nathaniel Bumppo, The Final Word.
The works of art have no intrinsic value. They are simply necessary to establish the status of “artist.” That is the important matter. To be the artist, to be within the discourse.
Hill Boothby, The Dazzling World of Almost.
That we have instituted so many awards in the arts is an undeniable measure of our loss of confidence.
Hill Boothby, Essays on Disappointment Management.
All episodes of silence might be equally silent. But they are not equal. Silence is syntactical.
Ross Dunward, My Time on the Tundra.
The Theory of Evolution seems to eliminate that miracle-of-life dimension from biology, the theological remnant. That was the theory’s seductive appeal. That and the thrill of “randomness.”
Godfrey Daniel, Inspecting the Time Domain.
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