Recently I have lost my little notebook of good sentences. I am devastated. So I am going to start again here. Basically good sentences are sentences that make me happy because of sentiment or syntax. They usually come from novels, but sometimes they come from my head.
'The minutes went on by tiptoe, with their fingers to their lips.' Raymond Chandler, The Lady in the Lake
'Small, sunburnt and ragged, they were like debris at the edge of a civilization which had itself for a long time been on the edge of the world.' V.S. Naipaul, Among the Believers
'It was a magical process, so commonplace that no one stopped to wonder at it.' Ian McEwan, Atonement
'Conversation would be extremely limited if we stopped moaning.' Copy for the Julian Baggini talk at the RSA
'... speech was only a bag of tricks that fooled you into believeing that you could see through the eyes of another being.' Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide
'She spoke with the cold-blooded complacency of the aged throwing earth into the grave of young hopes.' Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence
'Death has impeccable taste.' The young Will Holmes
'One's involvement in other peoples' lives gave one numerous small opportunities for importance.' Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss
Recent Comments