“Ishido lingered three days and died very old.”
- James Clavell, Shogun
I’m pretty sure it was a Ray Bradbury story, can’t find the name, but there a psycho dad who had wanted a son and got a daughter, and a Halloween game in the dark basement where you feel some grapes …“and this was his eyes”…and feel a piece of liver…“and this was his guts”…etc. And the little daughter was discovered missing and the hunt was on, kids running around calling her name, and in the basement:
“and then some idiot turned on the lights”.
It’s called “October Game.”
“A boy loves his dog.”
-Vic ‘A Boy and his Dog’ - Harlan Ellison
“When your laboratory explodes, lacing your body with a supercharged elixir, what do you do? You don’t just lie there. You crawl out of the rubble, hideously scarred, and swear vengeance on the world. You keep going. You keep trying to take over the world.”
-Doctor Impossible ‘Soon I Will Be Invincible’ - Austin Grossman
:smack: I knew that, really! Thanks!
“Are they your men?” asked Georg. “Are they your men?” he repeated impatiently as Ulrich did not answer.
“No,” said Ulrich with a laugh, the idiotic chattering laugh of a man unstrung with hideous fear.
“Who are they?” asked Georg quickly, straining his eyes to see what the other would gladly not have seen.
“Wolves.”
Saki, “The Interlopers”
Wow. I’m friends with a number of film snobs… but an anti-film snob? That out-snobs 'em all.
Should I break the news to my friends that even though Sabrina “only likes French Cinéma Nouveau”; and though M. Michael “only watches movies that have never had more than twenty people in the audience”…that they’ve been out-snootied?
ps (on topic): I am going to dig through book boxes next week and re-read some Saki and Ray Bradbury short stories, and A Wrinkle in Time.
But look around you…
Death and Light are everywhere, always, and they begin, end, strive, attend, into and upon the Dream of the Nameless that is the world, burning words within Samsara, perhaps to create a thing of beauty.
As the wearers of the saffron robe still meditate upon the Way of Light, and the girl who is named Murga visits the temple daily, to place before her dark one in his shrine the only devotion he receives, of flowers.
Roger Zelazny, Lord of Light
Just shivered all over, I did!
We each owe a death, there are no exceptions, I know that, but sometimes, oh God, the Green mile is so long."–Stephen King “The Green Mile”
Just went and read this story. Simultaneously glad and very sorry I did.
I’m creeped out, and I want to hug my daughter. Yikes.
“The sun was just coming up over the hills on his right. As he peered ahead into the great land that stretched before him, the way seemed long. But the sky was bright, and he somehow felt he was headed in the right direction.”
E.B. White, Stuart Little
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises
“Timshel!”
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Can’t believe I forgot that one. Absolutely my favorite part of a wonderful book.
I’m going to give one from an average book that gets it perfect, then doesn’t stop and so fails: Blue Moon Rising by Simon Green
They set off down the dusty trail that led into the Forest, and so passed out of history and into legend.
If he’d left it there it would have been perfect, but he continues:
And whereever they went, and whatever they found, Rupert, Julia, the dragon and the unicorn faced it together. Heroes, all.
Epic fail.
I think the fail began after the first comma.
“An’ they chased him ‘n’ never could catch him ‘cause they didn’t know what he looked like, an’ Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn’t done any of those things… Atticus, he was real nice…”
His hands were under my chin, pulling up the cover, tucking it around me.
“Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”
He turned out the light and went into Jem’s room. He would be there all night, and he would be there when Jem waked up in the morning.
–Harper Lee, “To Kill a Mockingbird”
And what a romp they had! The bathroom was drenched with their splashings. Of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Point Counterpoint, Aldous Huxley
The last line of Kerouac’s On The Road is a masterpiece:
Surprised nobody quoted Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities yet: