It had not taken Wilson Hitchings long to realize that the firm of Hitchings Brothers had its definite place in the commercial aristocracy of the East, and that China had retained a respect for mercantile tradition which had disappeared from the Occidental world.
“I think that is nice,” said Mr. Moto, “so very, very nice.”
John P. Marquand, Think Fast, Mr. Moto
Leon Walsh was the first one they found out about.
Eberhart took the keys, fitted the right ones into the right locks, and opened the door.
Barbara Paul, Kill Fee
He was the last one aboard the flight from Tempelhof to the Cologne-Bonn airport.
The Christmas Help
Ross Thomas, The Cold War Swap
The Volkswagen was parked on the wide sidewalk of the Haarlemmer Houttuinen, opposite number 5, and it was parked the way it shouldn't be parked.
“God.”
Janwillem van de Wetering, Outsider in Amsterdam
I can't believe I'm on this road again, twisting along past the lake where the white birches are dying, the disease is spreading up from the south, and I notice they now have seaplanes for hire.
The lake is quiet, the trees surround me, asking and giving nothing.
Margaret Atwood, Surfacing
A hen is an egg's way of making another egg.
‘As your wife's inquest will show,’ said Kramer, with a glance at Zondi, ‘your boy had something he wouldn't want to confess to you, Major Zuidmeyer.’
James McClure, The Artful Egg
Arena Blanca was right.
“Phone the police,” Dave said.
Joseph Hansen, Deathclaims
At a window overlooking a garden in Kent, Brian Page sat amid a clutter of open books at the writing-table, and felt a strong distaste for work.
Yours Sincerely, John Farnleigh (whilom Patrick Gore).
John Dickson Carr, The Crooked Hinge
“I could kill him!” Dorrie Murdoch said furiously to her husband.
“Who will know?”
Barbara Paul, But He was Already Dead When I Got There
The choice was simple enough.
Or whether I should call anyone at all.
Ross Thomas, The Brass Go-Between
Matthew wondered what he was doing here.
This is the farmer that sowed the corn that kept the cock that crowed in the morn that waked the priest all shaven and shorn that married the man all tattered and torn that kissed the maiden all forlorn that milked the cow with the crumpled horn that tossed the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built.
Ed McBain, The House that Jack Built
Wait...wait...wait...
Looking down at the dog, wondering, Feiffer touched at his face, and found that—soundlessly, pointlessly, for no reason at all—he seemed to be weeping.
William Marshall, Road Show
She thought she heard a sound.
“I thought you'd never ask,” she said.
Ed McBain, Puss in Boots
In a shed of unpainted boards, a kind of swollen privy on a compound of like structures in a field of dirty snow somewhere in Indiana, an anonymous major after an eleventh-hour pitch for the Regular Army or at least the Reserve, bade good-by to thirty-odd soldiers—among whom was Corporal Carlo Reinhart, 15302320, the oddest of the lot, take it as you would: clinically: his last six months' service had been as patient in the neuropsychiatric wards of sundry military hospitals abroad and at home; emotionally: as near as he could tell, he was the only man ever released from the U.S. Army who was sorry to go; legally: the official typist had printed an error on his discharge certificate.
“If you care to know my opinion,” she said finally, “I would grin so as not to show my front teeth.”
Thomas Berger, Reinhart in Love
My parents came to America by invitation.
Like your immigrant grandparents who sent for those left behind, you will have to help others to cross over into freedom.
Sam Levinson, Everything but Money
I knew her eight years ago.
“Think about it. Think. Because if you go, you're finished.”
Philip Roth, The Dying Animal
A few summers ago I visited two dairy farms, Huls Farm and Gardar Farm, which despite being located thousands of miles apart were still remarkably similar in their strengths and vulnerabilities.
My hope in writing this book has been that enough people will choose to profit from the opportunity to make a difference.
Jared Diamond, Collapse
It was the first day of Michaelmas term and acid rain was falling on the campus.
He paused outside the Pakistani grocer's on the corner, turned, punched the air gleefully with his small fist, and was gone.
Frank Parkin, The Mind and Body Shop
If I were drowning I couldn't reach out a hand to save myself, so unwilling am I to set myself up against my fate.
I prefer to suffer, I think.
Margaret Drabble, The Waterfall
“And by the way,” said Mr. Hankins, arresting Miss Rossiter as she rose to go, “there is a new copy-writer coming in today.”
Advertise, or go under.
Dorothy Sayers, Murder Must Advertise
He crossed airport tarmac in the rain, and climbed a cold, wet steel staircase to a DC-8.
To the beat of their heels on the massive old planks, he almost started whistling in the rain.
Joseph Hansen, Early Graves
Introductory books and courses on linguistics invariably try to get away from their rather complex-sounding titles as soon as they can, by producing a thumb-nail definition which (it is hoped) will provide a more familiar starting-point.
But the more we understand the relative merits and demerits of the various theories, descriptions and procedures which the subject provides, the more likely we will be to reach a view of language that is reasonable and convincing, as well as personally satisfying.
David Crystal, Linguistics
None of the merry-go-rounds seemed to work anymore.
I'll be seventy-two next week.
John Gregory Dunne, True Confessions
In the last years of the Seventeenth Century there was to be found among the fops and fools of the London coffeehouses one rangy, gangling flitch called Ebenezer Cooke, more ambitious than talented, and yet more talented than prudent, who, like his friends-in-folly, all of whom were supposed to be educating at Oxford or Cambridge, had found the sound of Mother English more fun to game with than her sense to labor over, and so rather than applying himself to the pains of scholarship, had earned the knack of versifying, and ground out quires of couplets after the fashion of the day afroth with Joves and Jupiters, aclang with jarring rhymes, and string-taut with similes stretched to the snapping-point.
However, either his warning got about or else his complaint was accurate that Maryland's air—in any case, Dorchester's—ill supports the delicate muse, for to the best of the Author's knowledge her marshes have spawned no poet since Ebenezer Cooke, Gentleman, Laureate of the Province.
John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
I can see by my watch, without taking my hand from the left grip of the cycle, that it is eight-thirty in the morning.
You can sort of tell these things.
Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood.
“If she'll have me,” said Lord Peter Wimsey.
Dorothy Sayers, Strong Poison
There are tragedies caused by war, famine, and pestilence.
Madness, perhaps, but surely divine.
Morris Klein, Mathematics, The Loss of Certainty
In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
The man and the woman carried the body cautiously up the stairs.
“Hello,” said Amanda, “meet my war work.”
Margery Allingham, Pearls Before Swine
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This page last modified on 1 April 2008.