#english

She shrugged another plump shoulder. “I never listened to Porter when he got going.” Ah. At last. The secret to a successful marriage. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#death

He said you were on the scene when that Laurel Canyon homicide went down.” “I’m lucky that way,” I said. “So are you two square again?” I halted, mid-ripping open the cookies, and stared at him. “Well, he’s pretty square,” I said. “I’m just a rectangular guy.” With latent triangular tendencies. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#death

Look, Paul. I appreciate what you’re telling me, but I gave Jake my word. Not to mention the fact, he’d throw my ass in jail if he found out I tried to go around him.” “He wouldn’t, you know,” he said. “Jake’s a pussycat.” Yeah, just a big old saber-toothed tiger. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#death

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in "Lonesome Dove" and had nightmares about slavery in "Beloved" and walked the streets of Dublin in "Ulysses" and made up a hundred stories in the Arabian nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in "A Prayer for Owen Meany." I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language. ↗

— Pat Conroy

#english #literature #reading #teachers #beauty

Sparhawk grinned. "If Martel finds out that he's drinking again, he'll reach down his throat and pull his heart out." "Can you actually do that to a man?" "You can if your arm's long enough, and if you know what you're looking for.[...] ↗

— David Eddings

#humor #humor

What the semicolon's anxious supporters fret about is the tendency of contemporary writers to use a dash instead of a semicolon and thus precipitate the end of the world. Are they being alarmist? ↗

— Lynne Truss

#english-language #grammar #humor #lynne-truss #punctuation

I turned back to the television. After a while what I was staring at registered. “Hey, this is The Long Goodbye." Jake opened his eyes. “What?" "This movie. It's Robert Altman's take on Chandler's The Long Goodbye. ‘Nothing says good-bye like a bullet.’” "I don't know,” said Jake. “Sometimes the words are enough. ↗

— Josh Lanyon

#humor #jake-riordan #josh-lanyon #humor

I know your head aches. I know you're tired. I know your nerves are as raw as meat in a butcher's window. But think what you're trying to accomplish - just think what you're dealing with. The majesty and grandeur of the English language; it's the greatest possession we have. The noblest thoughts that ever flowed through the hearts of men are contained in its extraordinary, imaginative and musical mixtures of sounds. And that's what you've set yourself out to conquer, Eliza. And conquer it you will. ↗

— George Bernard Shaw

#language #imagination

We are men without ambition, and all we want is to be left alone, in peace so that we can try and be happy. So few people will understand this simplicity. ↗

— Upamanyu Chatterjee

#english #men

I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since. ↗

— Jerome K. Jerome

#german #humor #sarcasm #men