New Feature! Skillful Word-Slinging - July 18, 2007

Occasionally I will share with you some skillful word-slinging. Here I present examples of spectacular sentences, popping passages, and delightful dialogue culled from the books, comics, movies, TV shows, etc., that I read and watch. Enjoy!
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Carter: An A’s great.
Zoe: Yeah, you get it for putting on the stupid shorts.

from Eureka ep. 2.2 “Try, Try Again” written by Charlie Craig.
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Stark: I’ve swung a lot of things that would surprise you, Sheriff.
Carter: What’s that even mean?

from Eureka ep. 2.2 “Try, Try Again” written by Charlie Craig.
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If you ask Rocket Guy will take toys down off the wall and demonstrate the ones that he could never sell. “It’s tough, trying to make toys these days,” he says. “The Consumer Product Safety Administration is so anal about how something could be misused. In the good old days, you could buy toys that, if you misused them, you could lose an eye or a finger.”

“I want to do a line of toys called ‘The Better Tomorrow Toys.’ They’re going to be designed so that if a child had an IQ below a certain level, they wouldn’t survive the toy. Stupid kids are not nearly as dangerous as stupid adults, so let’s take them out when they’re young. I know it sounds cruel, but it’s a reasonable expectation.”

from “Human Error” in Stranger Than Fiction by Chuck Palahniuk – quotes from Rocket Guy, Brian Walker.
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[context] The woman I didn’t know asked if I had a match. I didn’t see the cigarette she held, and thought she meant to light the piñata.[end context] I told her, and we all doubled over picturing melting gummy bears dripping like hot wax onto the outstretched hands of the blindfolded children beneath it.

Fantastic imagery!

[context] We looked to the woods where something large was making its way through the trees toward the road.[end context] In the moment before Tony and Bruce drove up – the children’s new dog barking in the car – locals and guests, we held our breath as branches broke, the magnificent rack an emblem of need that could not wait another day.

There’s some awesome alliteration and rhythm in the second highlighted sentence.

from “The Children’s Party” in Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories by Amy Hempel.
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By rights, Jack should have headed west when his wife, Alex, left him, but they lived in California so he drove east, folding down the visor each morning against the sun.

This is the kind of opening sentence I wish I could write.

from “Sportsman” in Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories by Amy Hempel.
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Stark: Yes, he said “invisibling.”

from Eureka ep. 1.3 “Before I Forget” story by Karl Schaefer, teleplay by John Rogers.