dennis scharnberg

We say that we don’t know what the future will be.  When we say that, and mean it,  we also mean this:  We don’t know what our utterances will be.

Thomas Bedlam,  Jackdaws and the Problem of Speech.

There are all sorts of containers, sir.  And a book is indeed a box.  So, a quotation is like saying:  “I have plucked this out of that container.”

Maxwell Havers,  The Complete Undoing of Lord Tuckahoe.

Here is what alienation is.  It’s as though the entire writing project evaporates if I have to commit to Writing.

Jerry Westerby,  Dark-Gray Magic.

Some things we are simply not supposed to acknowledge, or to state.  For example, that we (all of us) from time to time say to ourselves: “Oh please, not that memory.  Not now.  Not now!”

Algernon Webb,  A Speculative Autobiography.

Objectivity:  As a goal, it is one of the worst forms of bigotry;  thus, it is assiduously avoided by journalists.

Clive Morrow,  A Crustacean’s Dictionary.

“If it is the job you really want to have, then you are unsuitable for it.”  Monica was desperate to find just the right sentence to open the How-To book she hoped to write.

Jason Starling, ed., Adventures in Narrative Parsimony.

Show me one thing in this culture that is not rock ‘n’ roll.  Show me one nook, one corner, one narrow corridor.  Show me anything.  Rock ‘n’ roll is conformity.  And on an enormous scale.

Melanie George,  A Phenomenology of Porn.

How does one say something that really matters?  And notice, please, that I do not specify to whom it might matter. Nor will I address the when and the where of such a statement. But just this: How might one come upon those words—and that ordering of the words—that would present undeniable substance to an audience?

Victoria Salt, A Compendium of Opening Lines.

That communication between humans is possible does not hinge on our being able to see how it is possible.

Titus Musgrave, The Enigma of the Box.