dennis scharnberg

Erected to orifice.

Andrew Tertullian,  Pandora’s Ponderous Puns.

“I have begun to read Proust again.”

“Oh?  Well let me ask you, then, do you ever watch yourself while you’re reading Proust?”

Philip Cavendish,  Tilly’s Treasury of Colloquial Bits.

“Why not say anything you want about the world?  Surely, it will be true.  Won’t it?  The crucial thing is that you want to say it.”  Gregory just might be guilty of being too hard on his fellow citizens.

Anselm Bligh, A Collection of Miniatures.

Virtue 1:   You don’t have to listen to rock music.  The music does the listening for you.

Hume Tanner,  “The 36 Virtues of Rock-and-Roll,”  Essays Concerning Human Understanding.

Gravity:  a social construct.

W. Karl Bavinger,  The Misanthrope’s Way With Words.

“Enlightenment?  Yes.  That’s what I will have.”  William spoke as though he were ordering from a menu.

Thaddeus Crewes, Crowded Evil World.

Politician:  a bad actor reading a bad line from a bad play.  Again and again and again.  And the line is a lie.  And the actor likes all this.

W. Karl Bavinger,  The Misanthrope’s Way With Words.

“I can tell you one thing, sir, and without hesitation:  Lies don’t come any nicer.”

Allison Cowling,  Night of the Detective.

“Is my writing just evasion?  Just a substitute for real living?”

“No, Jeremy.  Not at all.  No, I don’t think so.”

Philip Cavendish,  Tilly’s Treasury of Colloquial Bits.

“Moment of inertia, moment of inertia, moment of inertia, moment of inertia, moment of inertia,….”  As was often the case in those days, Eric was lost in his study of the rotational behavior of metal rods.

Charles Jeffrey Yett, Writing in Miniature—Vol. 3.