Blindness
“Sometimes you do a thing because it is the only arrow you have left in your quiver. You do it, not because you have a brilliant plan, but because if you do nothing your soul withers and dies.”
The Wardrobe
“They pushed past the eighth layer of clothing. This was as deep as he’d dared go his first night in the house, once he’d realized what he had here.”
Arkteia
“Iphigenia had been Agamemnon’s daughter, sacrificed to and, some said, rescued by the goddess, taken to Greece and set to preside over the rituals there. Iphigenia, the name Kate had chosen.”
Spellman Mathers’ Travelling Show & Zoo of Ordinary Creatures
“Sure, back in England Tom would be the wonder of the age and we’d—he’d—be rich and meeting royalty and such like. But what’s a man with a donkey head in a place where wishes come true?”
HEL 266
Susan held the straw for the core. “You know, in the Semitic languages – Arabic, Hebrew, and Akkadian specifically – the word for tree sap is dem. It’s also the word for blood.”
Rockport Boys
“Their family trees are full of beautiful men who were hanged as witches or lost at sea, and all their houses are haunted.”
The Passenger
“By the time the train skips East Broadway and hurtles under the East River towards Brooklyn, uneasiness is beginning to catch beneath the exasperation, a low burbling panic like the sound of scuba tanks exhaling…”
Animal Husbandry
“Nothing about it’s right,” Herm Dublin said, smiling at his friends while still regarding the animal in his arms with a sense of horror.
The Absence Of Cows
“I don’t know Jeremy Mitchell or his wife, and I couldn’t possibly comment on the existential angst of cows. I look at Jeremy’s face and try to conjure the snapshot of him as a skinny thirteen-year-old, fumbling for my lips in the dark, but missing and catching the side of my mouth instead.”
Swansong for Trump
“Hitchcock knew that birds have power. As a bona fide fairy god mother, I fraternize with fantastic creatures—such as fire-breathing trumpeter swans.”