|
|
 |
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Death in Seven Volumes, by Douglas G. Browne:
***
[X here is simply the classic "unknown" person in the mystery. But the protagonists' theorizing is getting overly complicated. Thus the caution...]
"We don't want too many Xs knocking about."
***
Wadeson's bushy eyebrows, which Fleurette afterwards likened to moustaches in the wrong place, rose slightly.
***
"Whew!--if that's how it's pronounced."
***
[Literary scholar H. J. Jackson wrote a fascinating 300-page book about the history of marginalia...but mystery author Douglas G. Browne sums the topic up in about twenty words]:
"But they don't find anything—or only the marginal scribbles that learned readers can't resist making. 'See page 42.' 'Bosh!' 'What about Poffenheim?'"
***
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From The Man from the River, by G. D. H. and Margaret Cole:
***
The conversation descended into such abysses of allusiveness that Michael gave up the attempt to understand.
***
Worse still was an enormous Early Victorian atrocity in yellowish-grey, with bands of Palladian ornament, which stood beside the Queen Anne block, and just succeeded in overtopping it with an obvious and ludicrous effort. It was as if one's grandmother had decided to stand permanently on tiptoe.
***
"Who are all those people?" Michael asked [....]
"Oh, nobody in particular." [But she immediately proceeds to give specifics about exactly who each of them is!]
***
"That man's like a revolting Greek chorus, always turning up and moralising where he isn't wanted!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From "Death of a Trouper," by Kelley Roos:
***
He was vastly surprised to see us; never had I seen surprise so vast.
***
"He didn't mean two bits, twenty-five cents, one quarter of a dollar to her."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From "She'd Make a Lovely Corpse," by Kelley Roos:
***
Still-lifes that ran the gamut from bowls of soup to bowls of nuts.
***
[RQA dept.]
"You'll look silly walking in with that! What will people say?"
"They'll say, 'There's a man who doesn't mind looking silly.'"
***
"I'm a drink-upsetter, too," Sara said. "But I only do tall ones."
***
Mrs. Tollman, a short, stout woman in her fifties, gave the impression that she considered these goings-on nonsense and poppycock, not to mention highly irregular.
***
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Picture of Death, by E. C. R. Lorac:
***
[A character's sort of lazy/unintentional "adjustment for inflation" of the "64-dollar question."]
"That's the eighty dollar question, or whatever the jargon is," said Macdonald.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From A Step So Grave, by Catriona McPherson:
***
[Presenting northmanship--and the islemanship counterploy!]
I have never understood the one-upmanship of Scots regarding longitude [sic*]. Why should the most northerly-dwelling Scotsman in any gathering be the top dog?... I hoped these Rosses would not be the type of Highlanders who would look down on Hugh and Perthshire and thereby nudge him into endless accounts of his grandmother's childhood on Skye to even the score. For northerliness is only one of the winning cards in the game: an island carries a hefty bonus. Of course, Skye is quite a southerly island and the ferry journey to it is a brief one. If a Ross grandmother had come down from some speck in the Shetland Isles, Hugh would be trounced completely.
[*She means latitude, of course.]
***
Then the footman, disappearing out of the room with the empty fish plate, said, "Fuchsia cabin marmoset coal-cake." [This is the English narrator's transcription of how she hears the footman's Gaelic.]
***
"And here comes Lairdie with the lamb."
"Lairdie with the lamb" sounded like another harbinger, along with the coal yak [more mistranscribed Gaelic], but the dining-room door opened just then and the Gaelic-spouting footman backed in, turning to reveal an enormous platter.
***
Hugh, who had never in his life heard a rhetorical question he did not answer
***
"You got here all right through the drifts then?" I said, and was rewarded by his grin lessening from maniacal to merely insufferable.
***
I said nothing and kept my face as blank as a skating pond.
***
Hutcheson was looking at me with his eyebrows positively rippling. They looked like two lively caterpillars crossing a pathway.
***
Alec snorted. He has a marvellous menu of snorts and I had grown to recognise most of them, but this latest was something new.
***
His top lip almost turned itself inside out from the strength of his sneer. [I visualize Kenneth Mars as Hugh Simon!]
***
I caught sight of myself in the dressing-table mirror across the room and closed my mouth, but I could not do anything about my eyebrows. They refused to climb back down my face to where they belonged.
***
"I think a Wester Ross man putting out to sea [on Easter Sunday] would be as conspicuous as you or me walking down Piccadilly stark naked, playing bagpipes."
***
I knew it had distracted me from something more important. I tried to see past it to the back of my own mind.
***
"I shall just take her to Gretna Green and present you with a fait accompli."
"You don't have to go down to Gretna Green if you're already in Scotland," I said.
***
"You could promise now anyway," Donald said. "I'd be most awfully grateful."
I beamed at him. It was a non-committal beam and, besides, the most fervent beam ever hoisted onto a face is not a binding contract.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From There Was a Crooked Man, by Kelley Roos:
***
"Even his typewriter complains. It writes poison pen letters to Bruce's editor all by itself."
***
[A running joke between two characters!]
She cleared her throat and affected the solemn whisper of a librarian. "How would you like your books, madame?"
"Rare!" I shouted, and we both laughed raucously.
***
He didn't take courses at Columbia's Graduate School; he snatched them. I was sure that Vincent was responsible for at least fifty per cent of the absent-mindedness of America's professors.
***
"Whoa, Professor, there is no time for maintaining, holding or contending."
***
[A genericized hairdresser.]
Her hair at its worst would have inspired the most blasé Antoine or Antoinette to greater glory.
***
"Mr. Girard, from now on...not a word. Even if I ask you a question, don't answer me."
***
Garbed in a faded but not completely subdued dressing-gown, he was enjoying a large thick cigar.
***
"What are you carrying around an empty box for?"
"It's lighter when it's empty."
***
"He doesn't enjoy being a Huber. He wishes his name were MacClump or Squiffen."
***
"Grodek is a city in Poland. And crossword puzzles."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From The Last Guru, by Daniel Pinkwater:
***
"This is the silliest thing I ever heard of," Harold's father said.
"You should see the hats we wear when we're at home," Dupdup Drng'pa said.
***
"When he returns to Rochester, New York, he will know more about the mystic East than any person in the West has ever known."
"Well, that will certainly be nice for him," Harold's mother said.
***
"They read Six Easy Steps to Nirvana, by Dr. Weary, or Hum Your Way to Enlightenment by Alan W. Plotz, or Your Feet Are Your Head by Brother Jimmy...."
***
The best that Hamish MacTavish could make of Hodie MacBodhi's explanation of Blong Buddhism was that if you spent twenty-four hours a day meditating, you aren't apt to get in very much trouble.
***
They made a long-playing record called Blong! You Are a Pickle! and offered it for sale in MacTavish's pickleburger stands. It was a record of instructions in Blong meditation, the first exercise of which was to make believe you are a pickle.
***
The hats [of the Silly Hat monks] were the silliest things anyone had ever seen. They were more silly than anyone could imagine. They were too silly to be described.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from Mars, by Daniel Pinkwater:
***
The signs all had slogans like Talk is Cheap--Action is Expensive; and Think Before You Think; and Today is the Yesterday You Won't Be Able to Remember Tomorrow.
***
They had titles like Harold Platt, New-age Seer of Rochester; and Blong! You Are a Pickle....
***
"The Order of the Laughing Alligator--a very old mystical brotherhood, said to have originated in Tibet or India or California, or one of those places."
***
"You have powers now that you didn't have before--even if they're boring powers."
***
"I met a Saturnian once, but we never got to be friends. He kept trying to eat my wristwatch."
***
"Don't we have any cities? Hee hee. Hoo hah. Ho ho." He didn't sound as though he was laughing--he just said the words ho ho, and so forth.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Rustling End, by Douglas G. Browne:
***
He looked again at Stephanie, his faintly freckled face, with its pointed nose and sandy eyebrows, suddenly sharpened, as though, she thought, it were some sort of pencil.
***
"Nobody here knows a binomial theorem from a turnip."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
***
There were other questions I wanted to ponder aloud, but Jeff's face was set in a contemplative silence, that "Do not disturb" sign was hanging on his nose.
***
"That's what's called baring one's soul, isn't it?"
"More," Jeff said, "of a soul strip-tease."
***
"How is your alibi?" Jeff asked.
"Fine, thanks."
[...]
"So," Jeff said, "it looks like you have an alibi."
"And am I proud of it! It's my first alibi! It just goes to show...this is indeed the land of opportunity. Ten years ago I came to New York empty handed. And now I've got a job, a bank account, three charge accounts and an alibi!"
"Good alibis are hard to get nowadays, Tony. Take good care of it."
"Oh, I will! I'll keep it in a cool, dry place."
***
A chilling gush of wind and rain met us at the front door; even the weather was trying to come in out of this dismal night.
***
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Seven Dead by J. Jefferson Farjeon:
***
[Turnabout Is Fair Play dept.: Wind be blowed!]
"There ain't much wind," commented Bob Blythe.
"Wind, be blowed!" retorted Hazeldean. "We're using petrol."
***
"I felt as if he was looking at a ghost!"
"The ghost of a cricket ball," murmured Hazeldean. "Why not? That ball was dead enough to have one."
***
"Well, I suppose [a ship's loud horn is] necessary in a noisy age," muttered a passenger next to Kendall.
"Probably the Ichthyosaurus made a worse noise," answered Kendall.
"Pardon me," retorted the passenger, "but there is no specific evidence that Ichthyopterygia made any noise at all!"
***
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Look Alive Out There, by Sloane Crosley:
***
When the Gossip Girl producers encouraged me to bring what I might wear to "a typical fictional publishing cocktail party," I was disappointed.... I had never attended a typical fictional publishing cocktail party before. I don't own any hypothetical dresses.
***
[The anthropomorphized moon in reverse?]
He has a face like the man in the moon.
***
I had not imagined there would be catering on the set of adult films. Though it makes sense--sex requires more energy than a monologue unless you're doing both wrong.
***
Tuesday is essentially a less popular version of Wednesday.
***
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Yobgorgle, by Daniel Pinkwater:
***
[Who Needs Context? dept.]
"I notice you're wearing a chicken suit. Is there any particular reason for it?"
***
[Fanciness Quantification dept.]
Captain Van Straaten... [was] wearing a really fancy bathrobe with gold embroidered dragons on it. It was five times as fancy as the bathrobe Professor McFwain had given Uncle Mel.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Attila the Pun, by Daniel Pinkwater:
***
"I've seen Frank Sinatra on television," I said, "and you're not him. Besides, I don't think he's even dead."
"Look," the ghost said, "why did you summon me if you just want to argue?"
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From "I Wish You Were Braille," by Louise Lagris:
***
Sometimes you circle the same people for years until your Venn diagrams bump into each other.
[She goes on to talk about how "sometimes the planets configure themselves into origami shapes..."]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Dandy Gilver and a Spot of Toil and Trouble, by Catriona McPherson:
***
"Hidey-holes," I yelled, feeling rather foolish, for it is not a word suited for yelling.
***
I would be interested to see her have the vapours but not if I had caused them.
***
Schichtlers--she managed the name without quite sounding as though she had swallowed a fly while bicycling.
***
Alec...saw off my hunch with no more than a desultory wave of his pipe hand and so, as we set to, trying to think how to prove it, we left my hunch behind.
***
"Thank heavens you weren't shoved on stage with Sarah Bernhardt and..."
"...Henry Thingamajig."
***
Hats were dreadful that year, as they are most years to anyone who is honest enough to say so.
***
Bonuses: Rich American visitors referred to generically as "Roosebilts and Vanderfeldts"; and the NOUN form "[a/the] higgledy-piggle."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From Mr. Pioneers Takes His Picaresque, by Richard Mallett:
***
After a few moments the old man called out, "I don't like you much."
"No?"
Silence. Mr. Pioneers tried again: "No?" Still silence. Then girl said, "You don't know about father, let me explain. Some people won't take No for an answer, but he's different. He won't take No for a question."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
unearths some literary gems.
From The Blood Card, by Elly Griffiths:
***
The general's eyebrows now seemed permanently suspended in the air.
***
Petre took out a large white handkerchief and unfolded it so slowly and deliberately that Edgar thought, for one wild moment, that he was about to perform a magic trick. Instead he wiped his brow and then carefully refolded the handkerchief.
***
"I'm going upstairs to make coffee....you stay here and chat."
This, of course, temporarily robbed them both of the power of speech.
***
An ice cream van trundled mournfully past playing "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts."
|
Page 52 of 64
> Older Entries...
Original Content Copyright © 2025 by Craig Conley. All rights reserved.
|
