“There is one thing that is common to every individual, relationship, team, family, organization, nation, economy, and civilization throughout the world — one thing which, if removed, will destroy the most powerful government, the most successful business, the most thriving economy, the most influential leadership, the greatest friendship, the strongest character, the deepest love… That one thing is trust.”
The Speed of Trust, by Stephen M. R. Covey
… and that sentence hints of Curly’s Law:
“One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don’t mean shit.”
“One of the latest entries of the NASS Registry illustrates what can happen to an unprotected sundial gnomon.”
The Compendium
Journal of the North American Sundial Society
“I heard a voice unlike the ones in my house or on the news that told me my place in the world.”
Heartland by Sarah Smarsh
“The American handed Leamas another cup of coffee and said, ‘Why don’t you go back and sleep? We can ring you if he shows up.’”
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John Le Carre
“Every man had his own special moment when he first knew that something was wrong. For RAF Group Captain R.C.M. Collard, it was he evening of May 14, 1940, in the market town of Vervins in northeastern France.”
— Walter Lord, The Miracle of Dunkirk
“Hey, could you come over?”
Lobster is the Best Medicine: A Collection of Comics about Friendship, by Liz Climo.
“Every night, when you stand outside and gaze upon the stars, you are bathing in time as well as light.”
The Man Who Ended History: A Documentary, by Ken Liu.
Hans Richter Field
Near Grantville, in the State of Thuringia
December 1633
Colonel Jesse Wood turned off the computer in his office, removed the floppy disk and carefully slid it into its protective sleeve.
1634: The Baltic War, by Eric Flint & David Weber
“Mahit came down to the City, heart-planet and capital of the Teixcalaanli Empire, in a seed-skiff, a bubble of a ship hardly big enough for her body and her luggage both.”
A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine
“The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say.”
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.
“Both sides of the American Civil War professed to be fighting for freedom.”
Battle Cry of Freedom – The Civil War Era, by James McPherson
“Stop whining, Harry,” said Anne Jefferson.
“Steps in the Dance”, by Eric Flint
First story in Grantville Gazette II, edited by Eric Flint
I usually have several on the burner at once . . .
“The curiosity entertained by all civilized nations, of inquiring into the exploits and adventures of their ancestors, commonly excites a regret that the history of remote ages should always be so much involved in obscurity, uncertainty, and contradiction.”
The History of England
David Hume, 1754
“Whether or no, she, whom you are to forgive, if you can, did or did not belong to the Upper Ten Thousand of this our English world, I am not prepared to say with any strength of affirmation.”
Can You Forgive Her?
Anthony Trollop, 1864
“On the afternoon of the Day of Truth, eighty seven years after the Revolution, Jennifer Mazdan, a server for the Mid-Hudson Energy Board, fell asleep and underwent a strange dream, one not found anywhere in the catalogues.”
Unquenchable Fire
Rachel Pollock, 1988
“I’m telling you, Mike, we can do this!”
“In the Navy”, by David Weber
First story in Ring of Fire, edited by Eric Flint
“Short of Aphrodite, there is nothing lovelier on this planet than a flower, nor more essential than a plant.”
Welcome, JohnnyWest! Good to have you here.
“Beth learned of her mother’s death from a woman with a clipboard. The next day her picture appeared in the Herald-Leader.”
The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
“It had been eight years since I first made the leap across the Atlantic from England to Broadway.”
Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, by Julie Andrews with Emma Walton Hamilton
“During a routine medical visit at a Virginia hospital in the mid-1990s, Susan, a 26-year-old single mother, was screened for HIV.”
–Reckoning with Risk: Learning to Live with Uncertainty by Gerd Gigerenzer
“Hey, Mouse!”
Nova, by Samuel R. Delany
“I was building shelves in the garage when our neighbor girl, one of my four-year-old daughter’s nosy friends, approached me and said, ‘I just saw in your house.’”
I’m Sorry…Love, Your Husband: Honest, Hilarious Stories From a Father of Three Who Made All the Mistakes (And Made Up for Them), by Clint Edwards