Tag: Highlights: Lines Worth Repeating Page 1 of 2

I’m a little late with this, but I’m away from my keyboard for a few days this week, and needed something to fill the space, you know?

Dark Age by Pierce Brown

But the measure of a man is not the fear he sows in his enemies. It is the hope he gives his friends.

I knew war was dreadful, but I did not expect to fear it. How can anyone not, when death is just a blind giant with scissors?

Pure of Heart by Danielle Parker

“What would Sherlock do?” She rolled her eyes at her thought, and opened the door wide enough to slip inside. “Probably not go into a dark house looking for a werewolf.”

Chaos Choreography by Seanan McGuire

Our family tree was more of a bush. But it was a really stubborn bush, like a blackberry bramble. We stuck together, even when we didn’t like each other very much, and we refused to be uprooted.

Every time I started to feel like I had a handle on something, however insignificant, it got pulled right out from underneath me. There was probably a moral in that somewhere. If I ever found out what it was, I was going to knock its teeth right down its metaphorical throat.

Not Prepared by Author

You’ve gone from this awkward guy who had no idea what he was doing to… a slightly less awkward guy who still doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he’s doing a good job anyway.

Eternity Fund by Liz Monument

‘How come you know everything about everybody?’ I hissed.

Rosie shrugged. ‘My memory is enhanced so I never forget a face or a voice. Plus, I’m programmed not to reveal anything inappropriate. I guess that makes me a safe confidante.’

‘Programmed? You mean… you’re not real?’

‘Oh, Miss Green,’ Rosie smiled indulgently, ‘you are funny. Half the people here think you aren’t real.’

The desire for the truth runs through humanity like a thrombosed vein.

Eye of the Sh*t Storm by Jackson Ford

He’s not actually very good at being muscle. I’ve watched him try and fight people, and it’s like watching a drunk try to dance the macarena. But he does an excellent job of looking scary. He’s doing it now as he stands behind Annie’s chair, scowling the scowliest scowl that anyone has ever scowled.

Before long, the guards and the two meth cooks are bound and gagged, thanks to a roll of duct tape Africa pulled from his jacket. Of course he has duct tape. If I suddenly needed, I don’t know, a printout of the Declaration of Independence, I’m pretty sure I’d find one in Africa’s inside pocket, along with coins in ten currencies and a signed copy of Prince’s last album.

I would like it noted for the record that I, too, start running. The problem is, my legs are very short, and my addiction to salted caramel ice cream makes it hard for me to compete in a foot race.

This is the problem with lies. You can’t just tell them and be done. You have to keep them alive, keep feeding them, so they don’t feed on you. And the problem with that is the myriad smaller lies that spring up to keep the big one alive.

I didn’t exactly expect plush couches and complimentary fruit bowls, but I also didn’t expect Robert and his friends to hang out in a movie cliché. You know the ones I’m talking about, where the bad guys always have their lair in a warehouse filled with hanging chains and flickering lights and grimy, unwashed corridors? Well, the Legends clearly saw those movies and thought, Hey, we should get some of that action!

Barking for Business by E.N. Crane

I had an aversion to iced tea as it was not coffee. It did, however, have caffeine which was sometimes worth sucking up the leaf water. It was no bean water, but it was theoretically better than nothing.

The Bullet that Missed by Richard Osman

The second date was, if anything, even better than the first. They have been to Brighton to watch a Polish film. Donna hadn’t realized there were Polish films, though obviously there must be. In a country that size, someone is going to make a film once in a while.

Joyce finally cracks. “So where are we off to, then?”

“To meet an old friend of mine,” says Elizabeth. “Viktor.”

“We used to have a milkman called Victor,” says Joyce. “Any chance it’s the same Victor?”

“Very possible. Was your milkman also the head of the Leningrad KGB in the eighties?”

“Different Victor,” says Joyce, “Though they finish milk-round, very early, don’t they? So perhaps he was doing two jobs?”

“It’s the people, in the end, isn’t it?…It’s always the people, You can move halfway around the world to find your perfect life, move to Australia if you like, but it always comes down to the people you meet.”

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

Real Tigers by Mick Herron

“And I thought he was one of your cleverer boys.”

“Mind like a razor,” Lamb agreed. “Disposable.”

“Have you got a gun?”

“No.”

“What if they have?”

“Your concern is touching. I’ll be all right.”

“But what if …?”

Lamb leaned through Ho’s open window. “What if they come after you? With guns?”

“…Yes.”

“You’ll be fine. Getting shot’s like falling off a log. It doesn’t take practice.”

A Necromancer Called Gam Gam by Adam Holcombe

“Inexperience does not always mean ineptitude.”

…for the first time in days, she felt the cold chill of dread and depression leave her as she returned the hug. She wept with Gam Gam, but this was different somehow. Not the screaming pain she had felt, but something warmer. Tears she didn’t mind shedding.

The Ink Black Heart by Robert Galbraith

He experienced one of those moments of simultaneous confusion and clarity that belong to the drunk and the desperate.

The idea of suggesting that Strike stop lying to the women in his life occurred only to be dismissed, on the basis that the resolutions to stop smoking, lose weight and exercise were enough personal improvement to be getting on with.

He was starting to feel like a truffle pig trying to do its job in a room full of incense, dead fish and strong cheese.

The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

What is the point of bad dates if not to have amusing anecdotes for your friends?

The Fall of the House of Ussher is a decent primer on what not to do with children.

“Infinite Jest is a masterpiece,” Harvey had said.

“Infinite Jest is an endurance contest. You manage to get through it and you have no choice but to say you like it. Otherwise, you have to deal with the fact that you just wasted weeks of your life,” A.J. had countered. “Style, no substance, my friend.”

People tell boring lies about politics, God, and love. You know everything you need to know about a person from the answer to the question, What is your favorite book?

The words you can’t find, you borrow.

We read to know we’re not alone. We read because we are alone. We read and we are not alone.

If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? by Alan Alda

Ignorance was my ally as long as it was backed up by curiosity. Ignorance without curiosity is not so good, but with curiosity it was the clear water through which I could see the coins at the bottom of the fountain.

Aristotle is often quoted as saying that a story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. That’s true, but I don’t think that’s the whole story. After all, a dead cat has a beginning, a middle, and an end.

Bad Influence by Alison Gaylin

…I’ve used the Internet only for work and for the purchasing of shoes—an approach I believed could lead to world peace if more people shared it.

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

“If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, but has an alibi, it’s not a duck.”

“No accomplices. Ever. Show me two individuals who commit a murder, and I’ll show you one individual who’ll make a deal with the District Attorney to implicate the other. In fact, I’ll show you two individuals willing to do that.”

The Worst Man by Jon Rance

It’s easier to keep doing the same thing over and over, even though I know it isn’t good for me, than to try something new. I’ve never been good at thinking outside of the box. When it comes to drinking and love, I’m firmly in the box, where I stubbornly remain unhappy and unfulfilled.

‘Sounds perfect. Nothing better than a proper old-fashioned pub.’

‘You haven’t seen it yet,’ I say, as we reach the pub and stand outside. ‘Here it is, The Crown.’

‘Looks nice enough.’

‘And it is. Literally just nice enough not to be closed for serious health violations.’

… I was at home marking some awful essays and I needed some fresh air. Can you believe that one of my pupils wrote that World War One was a minor conflict in the early part of the nineteenth century?’

‘Really? That’s terrible. I blame the teachers.’

‘Me too,’

I arrive home from work on the Friday before my birthday weekend to a surprise abduction. I suppose all abductions are essentially a surprise. You don’t tend to sit down with your abductors prior to your abduction and plan everything out. Surprise is indeed a crucial element when abducting someone, and I’m certainly surprised by mine.

Random Sh*t Flying Through the Air by Jackson Ford

What can I say—police chases and murder plots and stand- offs with black ops teams have a way of bringing coworkers together.

OK, private jets are awesome. This plane is bigger than my apartment. And it’s way more comfortable: buttery leather seats, muted silver accents, tables that I’m pretty sure are real wood. Also a full bar, with some seriously good whiskey stacked behind it. Forget being a chef. Hell, forget being a government agent. I should try find work as a German tech billionaire.

It’s hard going. And not just beauce of the terrain. I can’t stop thinking about [spoiler]. Replaying what happened over and over and over. Trying to find an angle, a way to make it come out different. But it’s like the ending of Game of Thrones. You can wish as much as you want, but it will still suck, and it will suck for all eternity.

Killing Me by Michelle Gagnon

“But first, Marcie and I are taking you out to see the real Vegas. Locals only stuff.”

“Wow, that’s tempting,” I said, even though in my experience, “locals only” usually involved some sort of harm to animals, followed by throwing up in a Dairy Queen parking lot.

Worse traveling companions than Grace must exist. I could’ve been stuck with a gassy dog, teething baby, or car full of mimes. But two hours into the drive I probably would’ve welcomed all three.

Cutthroat Cupcakes by Cate Lawley

My gut didn’t like this guy. It also wasn’t doing somersaults and pointing at him as the murderer— but an intuitive organ can only do so much, and that likely exceeded reasonable expectations of it.

That feeling you get when you’ve been on a transatlantic flight, when your seat neighbor coughed the entire flight and the flight attendant spilled a drink on you because some idiot tried to pass her in the aisle at the exact moment she was handing you your drink? As if your skin is covered in a layer of filth and germs and a stickiness that cannot be wiped away? That’s how I felt after one lingering look from Hector.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

I was shocked as I put this together that I only had one selection from The Winter of Frankie Machine, but all the other bits only work in context (and you might argue the same of this one). At the same time, I assure you I exercised restraint with both Russo and Harrow (and, yes, I typed that Russow and Harro initially).

The Winter of Frankie Machine by Don Winslow

He finds the boat, the Becky Lynn. The name tells the story—two guys finally get their wives’ permission to buy a boat together and name it after both wives so they don’t get jealous. Not of each other, of the boat.

Which never works, Frank thinks.

Women and boats mix like…

Women and boats.

Straight Man by Richard Russo

I couldn’t understand her failure to grasp what was happening. It was my opinion, then and now, that two people who love each other need not necessarily have the same dreams and aspirations, but they damn well ought to share the same nightmares.

One of the nice things about our marriage, at least to my way of thinking, is that my wife and I no longer have to argue everything through. We each know what the other will say, and so the saying becomes an unnecessary formality. No doubt some marriage counselor would explain to us that our problem is a failure to communicate. But to my way of thinking, we’ve worked long and hard to achieve this silence, Lily’s and mine, so fraught with understanding.

The student newspaper contains a lot more humor, though most of it is unintentional. Except for the front page (news) and the back page(sports), the campus rag contains little but Letters to the Editor, which I scan first for allusions to myself and next for unusual content. Which in the current climate is any subject other than the Unholy Trinity of insensitivity, sexism, and bigotry, which the self-righteous (though not always literate) letter writers want their readers to know they’re against. As a group they seem to believe that high moral indignation offsets, and indeed outweighs, all deficiencies of punctuation, spelling, grammar, logic, and style. In support of this notion, there’s only the entire culture.

There’s no bad side of the tracks in Railton, also no good side. The rule is, the closer you get to the tracks, the worse.

You may not believe me, but I’ve always liked you, Hank. You’re like a character in a good book–almost real, you know?

The world is divided between kids who grew up wanting be their parents and those like us, who grow up wanting anything but. Neither group ever succeeds.

Perhaps no man should possess the key to his wife’s affections, what makes and keeps him worthy in her eyes. That would be like gaining unauthorized access to God’s grace, we would not use such knowledge wisely.

The Rhythm of Time by Questlove with S.A. Cosby

Kasia spun around on her work stool to face him. There was tape on the bridge of her glasses, but they weren’t broken. Kasia called it an affectation.

Sunbolt by Intisar Khanani

“Justice served with a side of pineapple. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Do you ever worry about anything?” I ask him, dropping into a chair. I eye the table sadly. It has been cleared and no further refreshments have been set out.

“My next bottle of wine,” Kenta says with mock seriousness. “When I’ll meet my heart’s companion.”

I snort. “Aren’t they the same thing?”

I slam against the wall, collapsing in a heap on the floor. Now would be a good time to black out, I think groggily. But I don’t.

The Manifestor Prophecy by Angie Thomas

Dad hates books about magic. He calls them “fabricated tales written for profit.” Technically, all fiction books are fabricated tales written for profit, but I let the dude have his moments.

This Bird Has Flown by Susanna Hoffs

So what if the lyrics were a bit on the nose. Isn’t that the great thing about songs? They give voice to thoughts, and feelings, and urges one might hesitate to reveal some other way.

“Have you ever noticed that there are way more sad love songs than happy love songs?” I said after a silence.
“No,” she signed, ” but I’ve done a tally. I suspect you’re right though.”
Which might explain why I haven’t come up with anything great yet song-wise. But I am trying. I’m beginning to think happiness as an emotion is an anathema to song writing.

Did I just use “anathema” correctly? It’s one of those words that can suddenly feel wrong. Like “pulchritude.”

“Music is a conspiracy. It’s a conspiracy to commit beauty.” — Jose Antonio Abreu

To calm myself, I imagined my future creative life in Oxford with Tom, my very own Rochester. Except not rich. Or arrogant. Or twice my age.

“Life is but a dream. Except it’s a lucid dream and you’ve got the oars… Okay, so maybe you’re in some tiny, wooden rowboat in the middle of a great, big ocean. But you can still steer the thing. You can go anywhere, do anything.”

The Once and Future Witches by Alix E. Harrow

“Oh.” Juniper feels the hot flare in the line between them, fierce and defiant. Is that what mother’s love is like?a thing with teeth?

“What, like fate?” It’s the first thing Agnes has said since they stepped outside, and both her sisters flinch from the venom of it. “Like destiny?” Fate is a story people tell themselves so they can believe everything happens for a reason, that the whole awful world is fitted together like some perfect machine, with blood for oil and bones for brass. That every child locked in her cellar or girl chained to her loom is in her right and proper place.

She doesn’t much care for fate.

An officer arrives twice a day to hang a pail of something whitish and congealed inside her cell. Grits, Juniper thinks, or the aggrieved ghost a grit might leave behind if it was murdered in cold blood.

It hurts even to think it. They came back for me. She feels something snap in her chest, as if her heart is a broken bone poorly set, which has to break again before it can heal right.

The problem with saving someone, Bella thinks, is that they so often refuse to remain saved. They careen back out into the perilous world, inviting every danger and calamity, quite careless of the labor it took to rescue them in the first place.

That evening Miss Lee feeds them a cabbage-and-ham stew which Juniper doubts has done more than meet a ham once in passing.

She thinks how very tiresome it is to love and be loved. She can even risk her life properly, because it no longer belongs solely to her.

Questland by Carrie Vaughn

She chuckled nervously. “Yeah, I suppose we all like to think we’ll be Captain America, but most of us are just on the street trying to dodge falling buildings.”

“Why not be Captain America?” I said, too tired to be angry but too annoyed to keep my mouth shut. “He was just a guy on the street, at the start.”

Iron Gold by Pierce Brown

A new wound can take a body. Opening an old one can claim a soul.

“It is my duty as a free man to read so I’m not blind being lead around by my nose.”

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, or a hell of heaven.

I feel like a kid who wished for a lizard and woke up to a dragon sitting on the lawn.

“I know it may be impossible to believe now, when everything is dark and broken, but you will survive this pain, little one. Pain is a memory. You will live and you will struggle and you will find joy. And you will remember your family from this breath to your dying days, because love does not fade. Love is the stars, and its light carries on long after death.”

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

There are more audiobooks than print books in this month’s selections. That has more to do with me reading more ARCs than usual, and I don’t have access to final versions of those to quote from. Or the book being so good that I just don’t know what to quote from (thanks, Ozark Dogs). As always, when it comes to audiobooks, I’m guessing the best I can at the punctuation, etc.

Backpacking Through Bedlam by Seanan McGuire

Family is complicated. Peach cobbler, on the other hand, is refreshingly simple.

“The laws of physics aren’t negotiable.”

Darius laughed, and the sound was loud and joyous as he set his hands back on the wheel. “Sure they are. There’s no law that’s not negotiable, if you know how to get your shoulder against it and push.”

Always be polite to she shapeshifting super predator. It’s a simple rule of life, but a good one all the same.

All Systems Red by Martha Wells

I liked the imaginary people on the entertainment feed way more than I liked real ones, but you can’t have one without the other.

You may have noticed that when I do manage to care, I’m a pessimist.

The Book That No One Wanted to Read by Richard Ayoade

Might I suggest getting on good terms with the capybara? This is just about the friendliest mammal you could meet. Native to Central and South America, they eat grass, weigh up to 150 pounds, and look like someone pushed a kangaroo’s head through a squirrel’s tail. They have dry skin and swim to a high standard.

Us books need to be seen. We need to be held. We need to be heard. I think that’s why children make the best readers, because they know that these things are also true of them.

Problems with invisibility include people bumping into you, and not coming out well in photos.

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai

People talk about grief as emptiness, but it’s not empty. It’s full. Heavy. Not an absence to fill. A weight to pull. Your skin caught on hooks chained to rough boulders made of all the futures you thought you’d have.

The problem with knowing people too well is that their words stop meaning anything and their silences start meaning everything.

That’s all science is. A collection of the best answers we have right now. It’s always open to revision. Yesterday’s fact is today’s question and tomorrow has an answer we don’t know yet.

So he did what you do when you’re heartbroken and have a time machine—something stupid.

…time travel is very bad at fixing mistakes. What it’s very good at is creating even worse mistakes.

That’s what love can do for you if you let it: build a person out of all your broken pieces. It doesn’t matter if the stitches show. The stitches, the scars just prove you earned it.

This is how you discover who someone is. Not the success. Not the result. The struggle. The part between the beginning and the ending that is the truth of life.

Is there a word for a thing you know you absolutely shouldn’t do, that would be wrong in every way that matters to you, but that you’re pretty sure you’re going to do anyway? Or is that just—human?

The Widower’s Two-Step by Rick Riordan

His eyebrows went up. His mouth softened. His eyes cast farther afield for something to latch on to. Nostalgia mode. I had maybe five minutes when he might be open to questions.

Not that drunks have predictable emotional cycles, but they do follow a brand of chaos theory that makes sense once you’ve been around enough of them, or been made an alumni yourself.

You could hear the stereo from the downstairs neighbors just fine. They were playing Metallica. Playing isn’t really the right verb for Metallica, I guess. Grinding, maybe. Extruding.

We zipped along with the front trunk rattling and the left rear wheel wobbling on its bad disc. I patted the VW’s dashboard.

“Not this trip. Break down on the way home, please.”

Of course I told the VW that every trip. VWs are gullible that way.

The Deal Goes Down by Larry Beinhart

Trees fight for life. If you climb to the high, rocky places, where the soil’s been stripped by the beating of the winds, day and night, you’ll see the pines hanging on, their roots crawling into the splits between the stones and wrapping tight around them, like the crew of a ghost sailing ship, desperately clinging forever to the lines as they ride through an eternal storm.

This love of life that we go on about, how precious it is and such, is just a mechanism. Spiders and flies, blades of grass, and bacteria have it. Any form of life that doesn’t have it gets wiped out. Ipso facto, it’s built in, like spark plugs in an internal combustion engine. We spend endless hours wondering if our life will be short or long, good or bad, worthwhile or worthless, then death comes, and we have no idea at all.

It was a 9mm. I didn’t know the brand. I knew it could kill me. The name of the manufacturer didn’t make much difference. They were all sufficiently reliable that I wouldn’t bet my life on a malfunction. Whichever one of them this was, it would kill me as dead as any of the others. For that matter, the fact that it was an automatic rather than a revolver and that it was a 9mm rather than a .38, a .44, or a 45 was irrelevant in the immediate context.

I felt I had to say something, some explanation of the distance that remained. That we—that I—retained. “Young men run on passion. Old men are filled with broken shards of memories. As if we’ve been looking at our lives in mirrors, all along, through all those years, lots of them forgotten, some lost, most of them broken, nothing really true or completely whole is left, just all those bits and pieces, sharp edges, and silver peeling off the backs. That’s all there is.”

The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise by Colleen Oakley

“Why is it called a grandfather clock and not a grandmother clock?” her eldest granddaughter, Poppy, asked once. “Because only a man would find the need to announce it every time he performed his job as required,” Louise replied.

Morning Star by Pierce Brown

Much as I enjoy using four hundred million credits’ worth of technology make me into a flying human tank, sometimes warm pants are more valuable.

“You tell anyone I cried, I’ll find a dead fish, put it in a sock, hide it in your room, and let it putrefy.”

In war, men lose what makes them great. Their creativity. Their wisdom. Their joy. All that’s left is their utility. War is not monstrous for making corpses of men so much as it is for making machines of them. And woe to those who have no use in war except to feed the machines.

Justice isn’t about fixing the past, it’s about fixing the future. We’re not fighting for the dead. We’re fighting for the living. And for those who aren’t yet born.

“I always think about how life would have been if Eo never died. The children I would have had. What I would have named them.” I smile distantly.

“I would have grown old. Watched Eo grow old. And I would have loved her more with each new scar, with each new year even as she learned to despise our small life. I would have said farewell to my mother, maybe my brother, sister. And if I was lucky, one day when Eo’s hair turned gray, before it began to fall out and she began to cough, I would hear the shift of rocks over my head on the drill and that would be it. She would have sent me to the incinerators and sprinkled my ashes, then our children would have done the same. And the clans would say we were happy and good and raised bloodydamn fine children. And when those children died, our memory would fade, and when their children died, it would be swept away like the dust we become, down and away to the long tunnels. It would have been a small life,” I say with a shrug, “but I would have liked it.”

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

I clearly read a lot of ARCs this month, most of what I can quote from here are audiobooks. There’s a theme about books and reading, which is nice, there hasn’t been one for a while, however accidental those themes are, I like when I can find one.

The Bandit Queens by Parini Shroff

Wasn’t sanity like beauty, in the eye of the beholder?

Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

Don’t knock voyeurism. American culture wouldn’t exist without it.

We walked off the bridge and headed east along the river path. It was early evening and the air was the color of scotch and the trees had a burnished glow, the smoky dark gold of the sky contrasted starkly with the explosion of cherry reds, lime greens, and bright yellows in the canopies of leaves stretched above us.

You Took the Last Bus Home by Brian Bilston

Yeah, no. If I started I wouldn’t be able to stop.

Justice Calling by Annie Bellet

A girl needs options. To me, video games are like shoes. But with more pixels and a plot.
“We could always nerd the guy to death, I suppose,” Levi said.

“Ooh, yeah, new torture technique. We’ll make him watch nothing but Highlander II and Star Trek V!”

Levi hit the brakes and executed the quickest three- point turn I ever want to experience ever, or make that never, again.

Miss Percy’s Pocket Guide (to the Care and Feeding of British Dragons) by Quenby Olson

(Diana’s husband, the sort who lived behind a newspaper or a book or any sort of reading wall that was meant to deter people from approaching in an oh- look- he’s- reading- I’ll- not- bother- him sort of way. This, of course, did not always work, as some people [re: Diana] took the presence of reading material to mean that the person reading was obviously bored and most likely pining away for the company of others [i.e., Diana when she was in need of a receptacle for her general complaints about life and motherhood] and would certainly have no compunction against setting aside their book with eagerness to listen.)

With a sigh that carried a lifetime’s weight of disrespect and disregard and several other words beginning with a similar prefix, Mildred picked up the last of her drooping toast and pushed her chair back from the table.

Mornings were never welcome. Mildred understood their place in the world; everything must have a beginning of some sort, and things like days and weeks and years and even time could not be exempt from that. But mornings weighed on her like a burden, like a trial to be endured before she could arrive at the legitimate part of the day, with the sun fully risen and the birds already digesting their ill-gotten worms.

“So.” Mr. Wiggan looked at her. But, oh, the amount of words, the pages of description and venting of thoughts and feelings and sympathies in that single syllable.

She didn’t much care for many of the books in the study. Neither her sister nor her brother-in-law were great readers, and so the volumes stored there served more as accessories to the room rather than how Mildred believed a personal library should exist: as pieces of the curator’s character, bound and shelved but available to be read again and again, like memories brought out and pored over until they were rounded down as smooth as pebbles.

Did one read books while travelling? Of course people read books while traveling. Books had no boundaries, no sense of home or place. They were the entire world, printed in a form one could slip into one’s pocket (Well, if the pockets were large enough, which they generally were not. Mildred made a pact with herself then and there to make certain that every future gown and apron she sewed for herself came complete with at least two pockets large enough and sturdy enough to carry most medium-sized volumes.)

The sound that issued from Mr. Simonon’s throat was not something that could easily be transcribed into written English. (German, no doubt, would have a word in its lexicon capable of expressing the particular kind of pain he was experiencing. But as Mr. Simonon was not familiar with that specific branch of Teutonic languages, his unintelligible and agonized warbling would have to suffice.)

Now that Mildred was sufficiently fed and rested after her exhaustion the previous day, her own anxiety took that as a sign that it should make a return, as if it feared she might be lonely without it.

The Green Ember by S.D. Smith

Growing up is terribly wonderful. But often it’s also wonderfully terrible.

He believed he had always tried to achieve peace and was sad that he so often had to find it at the end of his sword.

Death at Paradise Palms by Steph Broadribb

No one shouts to say Lizzie shouldn’t be there. They barely glance at her. That’s the benefit of being in your sixties – you’re seen as unthreatening and assumed to be doing what you’re meant to where you’re meant to be doing it. As she’s recently started to discover, assumptions like that make it so much easier to break the rules.

Golden Son by Pierce Bron

Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s where you find light when all grows dark.

I would not have raised you to be a great man. There is no peace for great men. I would have had you be a decent one. I would have given you the quiet strength to grow old with the woman you love.

Friendships take minutes to make, moments to break, years to repair.

He always thinks because I’m reading, I’m not doing anything. There is no greater plague to an introvert than the extroverted.

Please Return to the Lands of Luxury by Jon Tilton

“Books don’t just have stories on the inside.” Chloe smiled. “Some wear is beautiful. It shows the journey to this very moment.”

Adult Assembly Required by Abbi Wasman

When the body experiences a sudden shock, it actually freezes for one twenty-fifth of a second and then deploys intense psychological curiosity, mobilizing every neuron and nerve, every sense, every possible input to work out exactly what just happened. In a microsecond or two the brain gathers the intel, sorts it, analyzes it, cross-references it, and is ready to issue directions for what to do next. It’s a miracle, really, and while it might not definitively prove the existence of God, it certainly deserves an enthusiastic round of applause.

As always, the food made everything better. Dogs and good food, universal improvers.

“I expected adult life to be long stretches of mastery, occasionally interrupted by a steep learning curve of chaos and excitement. But I learned recently it’s the other way around.” She looked at Laura and shrugged. “But what can you do?”

Laura narrowed her eyes, “You’re very philosophical.”

Nina looked around for the waitress. “Nah. I’m clutching at straws like you. I’m simply older and more resigned to it.”

“To what?”

“To life.”

“You’re resigned to life?”

“Better than resigning from it.”

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

One thing I’ve learned lately is that if I don’t get this done right away at the beginning of the month, it slips away from me. Good to know, I guess, eh? On with these lines from my February reads…

The Hero Interviews by Andi Ewington

It’s worth noting that ‘success’ in the adventuring business is usually measured by whether you’re still breathing after completing an adventure. Those who aren’t successful typically wind up dead.

“My father taught me that you always get out of life what you put into it. If you’re only paying a Dwarf in crumbs, then you’re only going to end up with a pissed- off Dwarf who is still hungry.”

Balstaff: … I just hoped someone would come to my rescue before I froze to death— or worse.”

Me: “What’s worse than freezing to death?”

Balstaff: “Being eaten alive by hungry Snow Wolves.”

Danger is just death’s distant cousin once removed— many an adventurer has fallen foul of it.”

Bad Memory by Jim Cliff

“Discretion is my middle name,” I said. “It’s a shame it doesn’t fit on my business cards.”

The dealer button moved around to me and I picked up the cards and gave them a shuffle. The six of us fitted around Scott’s kitchen table so long as everyone breathed in and nobody minded the odd elbow in the ribs.

Her glasses were designer – I could tell because the designer’s name was discreetly embossed on the frame. Her suit didn’t have any names on it, but I figured clothes designers were just more humble

“You’re lucky you caught me in a good mood. I just got a hole in one on the 17th. What is it?”

I resisted the urge to say ‘it’s when the ball goes in the hole on the first hit, but that’s not important right now’ and asked my question.

The Silk Empress by Josepf Matulich

“So, that’s what air pirates really look like.” They resembled none of the flamboyant descriptions of the penny dreadfuls he’d grown up on. He’d expected striped pants, velvet coats, and satin sashes. This group looked the type to rob pig herds on the way to Newcastle.

His mother would have approved of his lack of possessions, a sign of spiritual freedom. He tried to feel in his heart the way she did, but he would have still have preferred to have had a few more books.

He hurt. His right leg felt to be filled with blades and broken glass. One of his arms ached to the bones from shoulder to fingertips; he couldn’t feel or move the other. A slow catalogue of all his injuries actually made him chuckle. I should be happy to hurt so much, he thought. You don’t feel anything when you’re dead.

With the long guns they carried, seven of them could shoot Algie as he engaged the eighth. He had been shot once already this year, and he’d like to keep it that way at least until Christmas.

Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Alan Conway’s home was a couple of Framlingham and it would’ve been almost impossible to find without Sat-Nav. I’ve lived my whole life in a city roads actually go somewhere, because frankly they can’t afford not to.

You’d have thought that after twenty years editing Murder Mysteries I’d have noticed when I found myself in the middle of one.

It had all come to me at Paddington Station. The extraordinary moment that all of them must have felt–Poirot, Holmes, Whimsey, Marple, Morse–but which their authors had never fully explained. What was it like for them? A slow process, like constructing a jigsaw? Or did it come in a rush, one last turn in a toy kaleidoscope, when all the colors and shapes tumbled and twisted into each other forming a recognizable image?

Finley Donovan Jumps the Gun by Elle Cosimano

My phone vibrated again as I reached for the keyboard.

Vero: I hope you remembered gloves….

I dug my mittens from the pockets of my coat and drew them on, wishing I’d been prepared with something a little more Temperance Brennan and less Bernie Sanders.

A Man Named Doll by Jonathan Ames

“A child’s portion of Don Julio,” I said.

I always order alcohol that way–stole it from an old mentor, a cop long dead. But he used it for food because he had diverticulitis. I use it for alcohol because I’m Irish. But that’s not entirely ture. I’m also half Jewish. On my mother’s side. I’m half Jew, half Mick, all ish.

We both stared at the little hip of ice on his desk, at $289,000 worth of sparkling carbon. Which up close, under a microscope, looked like a palace.

It was bumper to bumper, thousands of cars jammed together, going nowhere and somewhere, reaching speeds as high as five miles per hour, ten if we were lucky; and even with the recent rain, the white smog, which we live in all the time, was especially thick,and you would never know that just a few miles to the east the whole valley basin was ringed by beautiful mountains, the San Gabirels.

But they were obscured by the white filth, and it’s old news, of course, but we are forced in this modern life, to always hold two ideas in our mind at once: one, the natural world is beautiful, and two, we are destroying it.

The Foundling, the Heist, and the Volcano by K.R.R. Lockhaven

“Why did you bury the treasure?” Azure asked.

Wakeman looked to her with an extremely confused expression. Even Mr. Threepbrush, who was usually over- the- top respectful, looked at her like she had just said the stupidest thing he’d ever heard.

“Uh… cause that’s what one does with treasure.” Wakeman couldn’t keep the condescension from his voice.

“Aye, Captain,” Mr. Threepbrush added, “what other choice did he have?”

Red Rising by Pierce Brown

Steel is power. Money is power. But of all the things in all the worlds, words are power.

I learn more when I make mistakes, so long as they don’t kill me.

Pocket Apocalypse by Seanan McGuire

Airplanes: essentially buses that fly, and hence have the potential to drop out of the sky at any moment, spreading your insides—which will no doubt become your outsides sometime during the collision—across whatever you happen to have been flying over. Since we were flying mostly over ocean, I was sure the sharks would appreciate our sacrifice.

“Family matters more than anything else in this world, Family doesn’t have to love you. Family doesn’t even have to like you. But when you need them, family has to have your back.”

Broken by Don Winslow

Behavior that was cute when you were in your twenties becomes aggravating in your thirties, pathetic in your forties and tragic in your fifties.

“father” and “mother” are verbs before they’re nouns.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

Time to kick off Year 2 of this series!

Pieces of Eight by Peter Hartog

A wintry blast welcomed me as I stepped into the frigid February night. The cold and snow had kept most reasonable folks indoors. You know, the ones that worked reasonable jobs, with reasonable hours and reasonable pay?

Two of Stentstrom’s people wearing plastic gear arrived to perform a thorough scan of the room using an alphabet soup of forensic devices that detected everything from fingerprints, clothing fragments and chemicals to shoe scuff marks and old boogers.

The connections were there, but remained vague shapes, too faint to see. It was like collecting breadcrumbs in the middle of the woods. At midnight. And I was blindfolded.

I gaped at her. The consultant folded her hands before her waist, returning my glare with a serene expression. That’s when the subtlety of her ploy dawned on me. Because I’m slow like that. Like a boulder rolling uphill.

Blackwater Falls by Ausma Zehanat Khan

That was his way. He was thorough; he was meticulous. Any other way, he’d be dead, and getting killed on the job was a luxury he couldn’t afford.

A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

L.A. burns, and so many other cities smolder, waiting for the hose that will flood gasoline over the coals, and we listen to politicians who fuel our hate and our narrow views and tell us it’s simply a matter of getting back to basics while they sit in their beachfront properties and listen to the surf so they won’t have to hear the screams of the drowning.

We met when we were both majoring in Space Invaders with a Pub Etiquette minor at the Happy Harbor Campus of UMass/Boston.

Lost in the Moment and Found by Seanan McGuire

She had a pretty mother with long dark hair and a laugh like watermelon on a hot summer afternoon, sweet and good and oddly sticky in its own way. Her mother’s laughter stuck to you, and it made everything better for hours and hours, even after it was over.

The baby came on time, as babies sometimes will, and loudly, as babies always do.

The Perception of Dolls by Anthony Croix, Edited by Russell Day

“You saw what you were expecting to see, and that was after we’d been talking about fakery and false impressions. Believe me, if we’d been playing poker, you’d be broke, and convinced I’d won fair and square.”

“So, I’m a mug?”

“No, you just see the world behaving the way you think it will. In fairness so do I, but I see a world full of card cheats and untrustworthy witnesses. Including my own senses.”

“Whatever was in that house had agency and intelligence. It was playful. But then so are children who pull the legs off spiders.”

Half-Off Ragnorak by Author

Where there’s one lindworm, there’s probably another. This is a fact of the natural world, much like, “don’t put your hand in the manticore” and “try not to lick the neurotoxic amphibians.”

Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey

Toronto is too small a city to get divorced in, really. My recommendation, if you live in Toronto and your marriage is not working, is to stick it out or move away.

It was a classic tale, and one I knew well, having talked many friends through near-identical scenarios in recent years. For straight women in their late twenties, getting cheated on by your partner is basically jury duty.

I cried, feeling oddly empowered by the depths to which I was sinking, that I could be this pathetic and still breathing was an achievement in its way.

The Wizard’s Butler by Nathan Lowell

He nodded with the devilish grin of a ten-year-old who knows he has a frog in his pocket but nobody else suspects.

How to Astronaut: An Insider’s Guide to Leaving Planet Earth by Terry Virts

OK, I’m not claustrophobic, but if there was ever a reason in my life to panic it would be now.” I figured I had two choices: a) panic, in which case I’d be strapped in, unable to move, with absolutely nothing to do about it, or b) not panic, in which case I’d be strapped in, unable to move, with absolutely nothing to do about it. I chose option b.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)

Since high school, I’ve collected quotations like philatelists collect tiny bits of paper. In every book I read I scratch out copies of far too many quotations for me to use in my posts. Last year, I was inspired by Witty and Sarcastic Book Club’s annual Quotables: Words that Stuck with Me post, but there’s no way that I could just do an annual version, it’d be far too long.

So, I started a monthly (usually) version. They’re likely my favorite posts each month (at least in the top 3 in any given month). I don’t know how many of my readers dig these, but I do, so they’re sticking around.

Here are the lines from December that really stuck with me.

Radio Radio by Ian Shane

Yeah, there’s no question. This woman thinks that I am a moron. The sad thing about that is that I’ve been presenting her with plenty of evidence that I am. I’ve gone from being “interesting charming guy” to Boo Radley in less than six seconds. I’ve lost my focus and my home court advantage. I need to get my cool back in short order.

The Twist of a Knife by Anthony Horowitz

“Moxham was strikingly beautiful, the sort of place that turns up in jigsaw puzzles or Harry Potter films.”

Sacrifices by Jamie Schultz

He chambered a round.

“For ghosts?” Karyn asked.

“I ain’t willing to rule out bullets just on principle alone. They might work, and I got nothing else.”

“Plus, it makes you feel better.”

“That, too.”

“If I live through this, you’re a lifesaver,” she said to Bobby.

“You sure this is a good idea?” Nail asked.

Anna gave him a bland look. “It’s been months since we were in the same area code as a good idea. This is just what we’re stuck with.”

Secrets Typed in Blood by Stephen Spotswood

Want to see a prosecutor salivate? Had them a slam-dunk case that’ll generate good press for everyone who touches it.

To ensure that, I’d slipped out to use the facilities and, instead of powdering my nose, placed calls to The Times, The Associated Press, and the New York City Office of Reuters. I decided to save Time Magazine for the morning, they were a weekly after all, and could wait.

My boss rolled her eyes. Well, really just one eye, the false one remained more or less glaring at me.

In the kind of stories that Holly wrote, someone was always having a shock and the blood drains from their face. I’d never seen it happen in real life, not until that moment. In a blink, our client’s face went the sickly pale of cabbage and corpses.

“It’s possible,” she said. “Though it would be rather imprudent.”

“Three murders under his belt? I don’t think our guy is the prudent type.”

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

“Well, I suppose one could see how you could see that. Only if you don’t know what a monster looks like, of course.”

What does a monster look like? Jam asked.

Her mother focused on her, cupping her cheek in a chalky hand. “Monsters don’t look like anything, doux-doux. That’s the whole point. That’s the whole problem.”

“Angels aren’t pretty pictures in old holy books, just like monsters aren’t ugly pictures. It’s all just people, doing hard things or doing bad things. But is all just people, our people.”

Midnight Blue-Light Special by Seanan McGuire

There’s something to be said for keeping your friends around you when things get bad. It may not be good for their life expectancies, but it’s sure as hell easier on the heart.

When you decide to be the immovable object standing in front of the unstoppable force, you’d better pray that you’re right about being immovable, and they’re wrong about being unstoppable.

Scattered Showers by Rainbow Rowell

Kindred Spirits

Elena couldn’t remember the first time she saw a Star Wars movie . . . in the same way she couldn’t remember the first time she saw her parents. Star Wars had just always been there. There was a stuffed Chewbacca in her crib.

The original trilogy were her dad’s favorite movies—he practically knew them by heart—so when Elena was little, like four or five, she’d say they were her favorite movies, too. Because she wanted to be just like him.

And then, as she got older, the movies started to actually sink in. Like, they went from something Elena could recite to something she could feel. She made them her own. And then she’d kept making them her own. However Elena changed or grew, Star Wars seemed to be there for her in a new way.

Winter Songs for Summer

Summer was curled into a ball on her dorm room floor.

Or as close as she could get to a ball.

She wasn’t one of those girls who could collapse into nothing. She was curled into more of a boomerang shape. A miserable boomerang.

She should probably move onto the bed, but it felt more pathetic to lie on the floor, and the floor was closer to her speakers.

She had a small, all-in-one stereo with a dual cassette player and a radio and a three-CD carousel. It was her prize possession; she’d saved up for six months to buy it.

In the old days, when Summer wanted to listen to one song over and over, she’d have to hit rewind on the tape deck and then guess when to stop. Or sometimes she’d make a tape with the same song dubbed over and over—that was time-consuming.

Now she could put in a CD and press repeat track, and listen to the same song infinitely without ever getting up—without ever having to shift out of her misery.

It had really revolutionized this breakup.

“Happy songs are the saddest thing to listen to when you’re unhappy,” the guy said matter-of-factly. “That’s just physics.”

“That’s not physics.”

“They break your heart because they make you think about the last time you were happy.” He took another bite. “Also, don’t argue with me about physics. I’m a physics major. What’s your major?”

“Secondary education.”

“Okay, I won’t argue with you about that.”

E.B. White on Dogs edited by Martha White

I like to read books on dog training. Being the owner of dachshunds, to me a book on dog discipline becomes a volume of inspired humor. Every sentence is a riot.

I can’t quite figure out why I am so busy all the time; it seems silly and is against my principles.

(Image by DaModernDaVinci from Pixabay)