—But that’s all pure speculation, Inspector. Surely.
—Well, no. Actually there is nothing at all pure about it.
Virgil Simms, The Case of the Frivolous Factotum.
An effect cannot precede its cause. Can it? Can it?
Tanner Faust, A Scrapbook of Impertinent Interrogatives.
Self-hatred is the very way of modern life. But culture steps in to provide deflection. Yet this same culture is the cause.
Gilbert Parkening, How the Moon Doth Sway.
Being deliberately confrontational—in art or in writing—is a form of luxury.
Amanda Willcoxen, ed., The Literary and Philosophical Fragments of Gregory James Sallust.
Middlebrow: refers to behavior such as use of the term “middlebrow”.
Callista Ralph, Alphabet Soup.
Words take us only to other words. Actually, there is no movement.
Otto Versing, A Tale of the Three Engineers.
Janet spoke as though she had just chucked something into the pond.
Christopher Ennis, The Case of the Broken Handle.
Disclaimer: No actor was emotionally harmed during production of this motion picture.
Jeremy Breedlove, A Sardonic View of the Movies.
Not quite slang:
—in a toothy place
—slow as old bones
—bucket legs
—a trotter’s pardon
—it’s clam time
—pile of pea pods
—knocking knickers
—Sir Whim of Wham
—a bad case of the honkus bonkus
Tessa Fields and Constance Gogarty, A Book of Lists.
I believe it was Chesterton who claimed that the insane are excessively logical. And that only their assumptions are irrational.
Gaddis Gann, Essays on the Pre-Socratics.
dennis scharnberg 