"The answer is simple:  where there is a market, there will be a product to fill it.”

—Terence Dickinson, NightWatch (1998)

An illustration from an 1853 issue of Graham's magazine.

An illustration from a 1902 edition of Vaught's Practical Character Reader.  The headline reads: "The center of mental concentration."

Yes, you may . . . on one condition:

"That you don't run off." —Heidi Rice, Unfinished Business with the Duke

An illustration from an 1897 issue of The Ludgate Illustrated magazine.  The caption reads: "Look!  He has no shadow!"

Staring into the depths: an illustration from a 1906 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "I stood up and met the hot summons of the rising sun, hurrying toward me, as it were, with glad tidings, over the spikes of barley."

photo by Cobalt 123

"'Demons don't cry,' she remarked, apropos of nothing.' Neither do gargoyles.'"
—Piers Anthony, Geis of the Gargoyl

"A writer's job is to lie.  A reader's job is to be deceived." –Geof Huth

An illustration from a 1904 issue of The Strand magazine.  The caption reads: "Leaping into the air so as to insulate himself from the floor."

"It bears repeating that touch should not be overdone, because touch can have a negative effect."
—Mark Stephen Schwartz, Biofeedback

"'Call it a hunch.'  He stood frozen in the doorway as if he couldn't decide, or as if part of him wanted to and part of him didn't."
—Laurell K. Hamilton, Blood Noir (2008), as if describing the plot of Young Frankenstein


A still from the perennially hilarious Young Frankenstein.

An illustration from a 1906 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine.  The caption reads: "The big dynamo drew him to itself irresistibly."

"This may surprise you, but serve is the least important aspect of table tennis."
—Boys' Life, Jan. 1966

Put the asterisk in ※-mas!

(Thanks, Mike!)

An illustration from an 1888 issue of Frank Leslie's Pleasant Hours magazine.  The caption reads: "The embalmed head.—'At the window sat a man.  It was the attitude of a man in deep thought: but he had no head."