“The plant was innocent.”
The Enchanted Greenhouse by Sarah Beth Durst
In late January 1860, the members of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce assembled in that city’s town hall for their annual meeting.
Empire of Cotton: A Global History by Sven Beckert
It was just before midnight when she left.
Signal for Vengeance, by Edward Marston
“Beetchermarlf felt the vibrations die out as his vehicle came to a halt, but instinctively looked outside before releasing the Kwembly’s helm.”
Star Light, by Hal Clement
“I’m not be nature a wellness person.”
We Are Experiencing a Slight Delay: Tips, Tales, Travels, by Gary Janetti.
“The story begins in the unforgettable spring of 1990.”
Stupid TV, Be More Funny: How the Golden Era of The Simpsons Changed Television–and America–Forever, by Alan Siegel
" ‘Yes, of course, if it’s fine tomorrow,’ said Mrs. Ramsay."
To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf
During its stay in Carlisle, the circus had made a vast number of friends and many of them had turned up at the railway station to bid farewell to their visitors.
The Circus Train Conspiracy, by Edward Marston
“some people count to ten to wake up from a nightmare, but Dolores always counted the bones oof her head instead.”
No Rest for the Wicked by Rachel Louise Adams
“It was pure greed that drove Roy and Paul Fergus to habitually ignore the law.”
Treachery By Design, Gary Birken, M.D., 2024
“The United States had throttled its foes with steel.”
Richard Nixon – The Life by John A. Farrell
Whether I am sitting out there in the cold, the heat, the morning, the evening, a big city, or a tiny town, there is one thing I am approached about more than any other topic, by far, and that is the Oxford comma.
Ellen Jovin, Rebel with a Clause: Tales and Tips from a Roving Grammarian
“At an age when I was old enough to know better I enrolled in law school.”
Habeas Circus: Illegal Humor by Alan Gerson
“Captain’s log, stardate 5537.1. The Enterprise is embarked, for a change, on a routine followup mission…”
Star Trek: Log Eight by Alan Dean Foster
February, 1918
When the telephone rang in the middle of the night, Harvey Marmion was immediately awake.
Danger of Defeat, by Edward Marston
“I write this little book to present a blessedly simple and entirely conventional resolution to an issue so laden with emotion and the burden of history that a clear path usually becomes overgrown by a tangle of contention and confusion.”
Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life, by Stephen Jay Gould
(Rosencrantz is flipping a coin.) “Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads. Heads.”
“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, by Tom Stoppard.
“The modern image of the sailing-era frigate is of a 44-gun frigate with a main battery of 24-pound guns. In nautical fiction authors love pitting the hero against a 44-gun French or American frigate.”
American Heavy Frigates 1794-1826 by Mark Lardas
March, 1918
Summoned to the commissioner’s office, Superintendent Claude Chatfield knew that something serious had happened.
Spring Offensive, by Edward Marston
March 3, 1942
On board the SS Beaverhill
The passage across the North Atlantic had just begun, and already Dorothy Furey was breaking the rules.
Spitfires: The American Women Who Flew in the Face of Danger During World War II, by Becky Aikman
“Shafts of golden light pierced the green twilight, penetrating the waving fronds of the forest to leave pools of light on the ground.”
—Fortune’s Fool by Mercedes Lackey.
“This year the Ribeiro’s daffodils seeded early and they seeded cockroaches.”
—Mirabile by Janet Kagan
Minor correction to stage direction from “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”: Guildenstern is spinning the coin, although Rosencrantz is speaking the words.
“It was a shame about the weather.”
Devil’s Workshop, by Kate Gallison
“To the people of the ancient world, the sun in the sky overhead, the changing seasons, the idea of north and south, were all much more substantial and concrete concepts than they are to us today.”
Latitude Zero: Tales of the Equator, by Gianni Guadalupi.
“Francis Marion Tarwater’s uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up.”
The Violent Bear It Away by Flannery O’Connor
“Lilly knew the cancer was going to kill her when the car wouldn’t start.”
For Whom The Belle Tolls by Jaysea Lynn.
“Put down that wrench!”
The Astounding Science Fiction Anthology edited by John W. Campbell.
The line is from the first story, “Blowups Happen” by Robert A. Heinlein.