We're so often mesmerized by rows of asterisks twinkling on pages of old books.  Here's an especially dreamy example from Wilfred Montressor: or, The Secret Order of the Seven (1865).

"This may surprise you, but every religion is the sum of its adherents."
—Scott Cunningham, Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (1988)

"The answer is simple: the problem is one which we have created by making this false abstraction and setting it alongside the facts from which we have abstracted it as if it were another fact."
—Charles M. Sherover, The Human Experience of Time (2001)

• the Alamo
• why we are so happy
• the mystery of probability
• our heritage
• to take care of Mother Earth
• that music is magic
• what we owe to our heroes
• from whence we came
• there may be squalls (of temper as well as wind)
• the struggles and wants of the poor
• our vows
• the price of liberty
• the sacrifices of others
• the inscription on the Greek temple: "Know Thyself."
• our mortality
• that we are one people
• the wonderful power of kind words, kind actions, kind attention, and gentle treatment
• to use our voices, our time, our energy to make this a better place to be
• that every subject has many different aspects
• that archeology is about people and their behaviors, in all their marvelous, often bewildering, variety
• that professional courtesies are due to every honorable dentist
• the one thing necessary
• this joyous day
• how to laugh

Scrabble lovers can save 60% with the iPad edition of our popular Dictionary of Improbable Words (all-consonant and all-vowel words):

http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/wyes-dictionary-improbable/id430260019

Did you hear about how in the next release of the Star Wars films, C3PO and R2R2 will have a new sidekick?  What Lucas is calling an act of "strategic symbiosis" and what critics are decrying as blatant product placement, the iconic robots will be joined by what looks for all the world(s) like a floating iPad.  The name of this superflat sidekick?  B43D.

"Only two novels in the past 67 years have not been described somewhere on their dust jackets as 'compassionate,' and both of them were atlases." —M.J. Arlen, "How to Tell a Novel by Its Cover," LIFE (Aug. 21, 1964)

"'Always,' it bears repeating, 'it is the affliction of one human being that captures the imagination.'"
—George Douglas Atkins, Tracing the Essay

 

Is it true, as Momus suggests, that there are "few tales which would not be improved by the addition of the phrase 'suddenly, a shot rang out'"?  Decide for yourself as we alter the opening lines of . . .

A BLAZE OF GLORY by John Strange Winter

In a little room, somewhat shabby and rather meanly furnished, a young girl stood looking round on its well-worn and tediously familiar features with great solemn eyes filled with utter distaste and dissatisfaction.  Suddenly, a shot rang out.

"Believe it or not, the undead can be very superstitious."
—Christine Feehan, Dark Slayer

"The simple answer is that some individuals have better judgment than others.”

—Frank Manchel, Film Study (1990)

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook:

The Spanish eñe has a stormy history.