sentences

savoury sentences from several sources, part 4

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

 

“On her lapel was a gilt brooch large enough to be a small sculpture.”
—’The Things You Know’, Lemon Table,  by Julian Barnes.

**

“Why is it that in every relationship a dismal moment arrives when one’s lover suggests the seaside?”

—‘Little Bird’, Oh, My Darling, by Shaena Lambert.

**

“Omens are for example hearing someone say victory as they pass you in the street/ or to be staring/ at the little sulfur lamps in the grass/ all around the edge of the hotel garden/ just as they come on. They come on at dusk.”
—The Beauty of the Husband,  by Anne Carson

**

“If you are offered a plover’s egg as a snack, that, too, is taken with the left hand.”
—The Finishing School,  by Muriel Spark

**

“It was a time when people didn’t ask as many questions. That was the time it was.”

—Martin John, by Anakana Schofield

**

“…vanity isn’t fussy; it’ll eat almost anything.”

—Boy, Snow, Bird,  by Helen Oyeyemi

**

“…he yearned to be in love with the sort of woman who would fall for the kind of man he pretended to be.”
—Savage Love,  by Douglas Glover

**

“I found myself more interested in the dialogue I’d stolen, and wondered if I was better at eavesdropping than writing poetry.”

—A Year of Days, by Myrl Coulter

**

“There is no box to check for not wanting a box at all.”

—‘The Rest of My Chest’,Gender Failure, by Ivan Coyote

 

 

More sentences here 800px-thumbnail

and here.

And here.

savoury sentences from several sources, part 3

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

 

“I imagined her at her closet, deciding what you’d wear to go learn something about your child that just might break your heart.”

— from We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,  by Karen Joy Fowler

 

“She said it with just a hint of bitterness in her voice, enough that I could taste it, like a squeeze of lemon in a glass of milk.”

— from ‘Serendipity’ in the collection Flesh & Blood,  by Michael Crummey

 

“She had no children and beautiful shoes in a range of colours, and each pair had its own matching bag.”

— from ‘The Green Road’,  by Anne Enright

 

“It surprises me that he could have seen any delight in Toby Whittaker, an exhausted-looking young man who, after shaking hands, said not a word from first to last, but whose silence emitted a faint air of disaster and gin.”

— from ‘A Serious Widow’,  by Constance Beresford-Howe

 

“Recently, everything around me felt familiar yet amiss, like the first time you ride in the back seat of your own car.”

— from  Let the Northern Lights Erase your Name,  by Vendela Vida

 

“The smoke in the dark looked like a dove that whispered the future to saints in paintings.”

— from Lullabies for Little Criminals,  by Heather O’Neill

 

“Home was something that you could fit into a suitcase and move in a taxi for ten dollars.”

— from Lullabies for Little Criminals,  by Heather O’Neill

 

“The mixture of cafe au lait and impatience was producing an exquisite vibration.”

— from Still Life,  by Louise Penny

 

“The problem is he married a Pole. Turns out she doesn’t know her arse from her elbow. Doesn’t even keep Keen’s mustard on hand.”

— from Are you Ready to be Lucky?,  by Rosemary Nixon

 

“That was the trouble with grown-ups: they always wanted to be the centre of attention, with their battering rams of food, and their sleep routines and their obsession with making you learn what they knew and forget what they had forgotten.”

— from Mother’s Milk,  by Edward St. Aubyn

 

“They were not merely sentences but compressed moments that burst when you read them.”

— from the essay, ‘Thank you, Esther Forbes’, by George Saunders

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More sentences here 710px-Woman_reading,_1930s

and here.

 

 

savoury sentences from several sources — part 2

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

 

“I always knew that sentences, beautiful perfect sentences, were the minimum of what was going to be required.” ~ Peter Behrens

♦

“… I may be the only narcissist in the world with a case of unrequited self-love.”— Stephen Reid, Crowbar in a Buddhist Garden

“Being the class clown was like always picking up the cheque and having no one appreciate it.” — Heather O’Neill, ‘And They Danced by the Light of the Moon’, The Walrus, July/August 2012

“…one of the mixed blessings of being twenty and twenty-one and even twenty-three is the conviction that nothing like this, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, has ever happened to anyone before.” — Joan Didion, ‘Goodbye to all That’, Slouching Toward Bethlehem

“”I’m not religious at all,” says Hilary. And the quick way she straightens her back shows me a woman who was baptized, took communion and knows the Act of Contrition by heart. She might as well be making the sign of the cross.”  [can’t remember who wrote this… help! anyone??]

“”Well, don’t read the bible,” I tell her. “That’s what Protestants do and look at them.””  [ditto above]

“Portugal is a fine country, for example, but I only found a couple of poems there.” — Lesley Choyce, Seven Ravens: Two Summers in a Life by the Sea

“To say what a letter contains is impossible. Did you every touch your tongue to a metal surface in winter–how it felt to not get a letter is easier to say.” — Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband

“When the cat died on Veteran’s Day, his ashes then packed into a cheesy pink-posed tin and placed high upon the mantel, the house seemed lonely and Aileen began to drink.” — Lorrie Moore, ‘Four Calling Birds, Three French Hens’,  Birds of America

“Though he looks at her, he doesn’t see her. He sees a version that suits him.” — Marnie Woodrow, ‘King Cake’, In the Spice House  

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savoury sentences, part 1

savoury sentences from several sources — part 1

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

 

“A single moment, a day, can shift into something profound by the reading of a single perfect sentence at the perfect time.” ~ Matilda Magtree, aka me

♦

“The boy was said to be a cousin of Kathleen Burnham and was up from New Hampshire, working at the sawmill, though he was no bigger and looked no older than an adolescent sugar maple.” ~ from Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout (Random House. 2008)

“Physical pain, like a poultice, has a way of drawing out what is hidden in the heart.” ~ from the essay ‘A Container of Light’, by Lisa Martin-Demoor, TNQ, Fall 2011

“What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one’s heroic ancestors.” ~ from Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen (The New Press, 1995)

“She sits at the edge of the narrow cot, neatly made and covered tautly with a white embroidered blanket, the kind that, if you run your hand over it with your eyes closed, feels like a skin disease, tiny white embroidered circles that pop up like pimples.” ~ from ‘A Well-Imagined Life’, in the collection Can You Wave Bye Bye, Baby?, by Elyse Gasco (McClelland & Stewart, 2001)

“It was the kind of party where no one ate the chicken skin.” ~ from The Forgotten Waltz, by Anne Enright (McClelland & Stewart, 2011)

“Because she is ten years old under an open blue sky, because there is not reason ever to arrive anywhere, because she has never felt exactly this way before—this loose in the world, this capable of escape.” ~ from The Juliet Stories, by Carrie Snyder (House of Anansi, 2012)

“Jake and I grew up without a mother, which wasn’t that bad, although we ate a lot of boiled peas.” ~ from the story ‘After Summer’, by Alice Peterson (The Journey Prize Stories,  2007)

“It was no more than a peep, the sound you might make if a butterfly lands on your hand.” ~ from the story ‘A Bolt of White Cloth’, by Leon Rooke

“There’s aggression even in the way they kiss each other so flagrantly, like they’re trying to suck the other’s gums out, like an old horse chasing a lost scrap of ginger nut biscuit down the palm of your hand and up your sleeve.” ~ from Malarky, by Anakana Schofield, (Biblioasis, 2012)

♦

 

savoury sentences, part 2