From The Bewitching, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia:
The stories contradicted one another as all good oral narratives must.
From “Did the Romans Like Swearing?” by James Coverley:
The Romans, of course, liked to curse and use rude language, just like everyone else. However, sometimes, our delicate sensitivities are guarded against the worst excess of ancient potty mouths by the pearl-clutching moral firewall that was the Victorians.
From “Time Well Spent: Beyond Success and Failure in Romancelandia and Academia,” by Jessica Taylor
Happy endings are a narrative structure. It all depends on where you stop the story.
From “Two Ways to Tell the Same Truth: Navigating the Boundary Between Fact and Fiction,” by Binnie Kirshenbaum:
The Russians have two words for “truth.” Pravda is the literal, objective truth (the eponymous official Russian newspaper notwithstanding). Istina is the malleable truth, a deeper truth.
