“She had long blonde hair and was almost pretty, in the manner of tennis jocks and female gymnasts; too much muscle in the face and arms and butt for the smooth baby-fat look of fashion models or movie stars.”
Revenge Prey by John Sandford
Manila, Philippine Islands
Feb. 19, 1841
Dear Mother,
They are sending the Army dependents back to the States, which is as it should be, in case anything happens over here.
[Italics in original]
And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II, by Evelyn M Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee
“Perry Mason extended his hand for the oblong business card which Della Street was carrying as she entered the lawyer’s private office.”
The Case of the Lonely Heiress, by Erle Stanley Gardner
“Eighty-three for Clifton.”
The Jaybird, by MacKinlay Kantor
“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.”
– The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
“Eighteen!” bellowed Viv, bringing her saber around in a flat curve that battered the wight’s skull off its spine.
Bookshops & Bonedust, by Travis Baldree
“Girl Scouts saved my life.”
Intrepid Girls: The Complicated History of the Girl Scouts of the USA, by Amy Erdman Farrell
“I fell.”
The Trouble with Gravity: Solving the Mystery Beneath Our Feet, by Richard Panek.
The Emperor broke into the throne room.
Long Live Evil by Sarah Rees Brennan
“Captain to the bridge! Captain to the bridge!”
Off Armageddon Reef, by David Weber
“Food can fix almost anything.”
Good Grief: Life in a Tiny Vermont Village, by Ellen Stimson
“They sat stiffly on his antique Eames chairs, two people who didn’t want to be here, or one person who didn’t want to and one who resented the other’s reluctance.”
“Beggars in Spain”, by Nancy Kress. (Novella version)
“A puppy is a puppy is a puppy.”
Dog Songs by Mary Oliver (a poetry collection; this is the first line from the poem “How It Begins”)
“When you’re a kid in a 1994 junior high school locker room, and on the receiving end of towel-snaps and occasionally missing gym clothes, you also quickly pick up on a pervasive amount of slurs.”
Luke Skywalker Can’t Read: And Other Geeky Truths by Ryan Britt
“He had come into the habit, before dinner, of taking a walk around the park: ten laps, as slow as he pleased on some evenings, briskly on others, and then back up the stairs of the house and to his room to wash his hands and straighten his tie before descending again to the table.”
To Paradise: A Novel by Hanya Yanagihara
Today should be a holiday, I thought as I punched my entry code into the keypad of the Westford Elementary School front door, or at least a snow day.
Bernie’s Mitten Maker by Jen Ellis
Helen Reid Bryan - fifty-one years old, a touch above five feet tall, with dark brown hair in a tight bun and a thinning face framed by black-rimmed glasses - sat in a leather-backed chair, staring at the congressmen with contempt.
Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America by Clay Risen
“We walked out of the Spiro Mounds in Oklahoma still covered in the liquid we found beneath, our lungs rasping with that alien atmosphere, skin shining and slick.”
Hole in the Sky, by Daniel H. Wilson
“God has no need for dynamite!”
Big Stick, by Michael A. Ventrella.
“Fuck!” cried Fern, ducking back inside the carriage a whisker before a clawed and scaly hand sailed past.
Brigands & Breadknives, by Travis Baldree
Bright morning sunlight glittered on the crossed golden scepters of the green banner of the Church of God Awaiting.
By Schism Rent Asunder, by David Weber
“So you’ve decided to commit a murder.”
Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes
“If you ask him where he went to high school, he likes to boast that, actually, he went to an all-girls school.”
Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (that’s the first sentence from “The Feminist,” the first short story in the collection)
“We couldn’t put in all the great/Or even all the small,/And many names with sterling claims/We haven’t used at all.”
A Book of Americans, by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benet
“If the whole tangled affair could be said to have a beginning at all, it began on that cold, blustery afternoon in late October when the man with the Igloo cooler walked into Richard Leyster’s office.”
Bones of the Earth, by Michael Swanwick.
“When Riley Tatum vanished twelve years ago, no one sounded an alarm.”
The Shark by Mary Burton
“Anyone remember what day it is?”
The Vixen War Bride, by Thomas J. Doscher
“I was late for my wedding–so late that the date on three hundred engraved announcements had to be forever wrong.”
Tomboy Bride: One Woman’s Personal Account of Life in the Mining Camps of the West, by Harriet Fish Backus.
“The water would rise up every few years, wash across the low, flat land, and take everything a poor man had, ruin his cotton and corn and drown his hogs, pour filth and dead fish into his home, even push the coffins from the earth and float his ancestors all the way to Avoyelles.”
Jerry Lee Lewis: His Own Story by Rick Bragg
Lizardherd Square,
City of Manchyr,
Princedom of Corisande
“So I don’t know about you people, but I’ve had more than enough of this dragon shit!” Paitryk Hainree shouted from his improvised speaker’s perch on the municipal fire brigade cistern.
A Mighty Fortress, by David Weber