From The Madstone, by Elizabeth Crook:
I had a powerful feeling of things being lost from me, and over with, as if all the scanty patches of wisdom I had gathered up in my life, and the scanty terms I had come to in my trials to feel peace about things in my past was gone and things in my life that was missing, and the scanty portions of knowledge I had learned from within books, of how I might live and do right, was all just pennies put in a jar and spilled out and emptied, and what did I have to count on now.
From How Can I Help You?, by Laura Sims
I put the other books back in their spots first: three with skulls on the spine for the mystery section, one by Charles Dickens, and another by someone named J. M. Coetzee. I have no idea how I’d say that name out loud.
Bluesky comment from @dochaus.bsky.social on the use of passive voice in a headline about the death of a journalist in an airstrike on Gaza:
As the not-so-old saying goes: English has an Active voice, a Passive voice, and a secret, third category of Exonerative voice that is unlocked by journalists when referring to something the police or troops did.
From The Exorcist, by William Peter Blatty:
Perhaps evil is the crucible of goodness…
From The Curator, by Owen King:
His only real remaining concern was the cats; he couldn’t know what the cats might be planning.
