“And in every last one of those buildings, there were women in striking outfits walking through those offices and hallways like so many tasty treats—red M&Ms in a skyscraper full of trail mix. So to speak.”
Pretty Black
“Tom swallowed, saying nothing. He thought, involuntarily and somewhat guiltily, about one of them, whose heart he personally believed to be about as black as his grandfather’s leather Bible, which was pretty black.”
Deep Calls to Deep
“They also want you to believe that their pockets are as deep as the all-round generosity and goobyness of the American taxpayer. Which is, let us be frank, pretty deep on both counts.”
For the Children, Aye
“Not only do these people know how to bust your kneecaps, they know how to do it in a way that makes all the major media acclaim them for their altruistic zeal to save the children. They always want to do it for the children.”
Dry Loose Gravel
“He was about sixty, but his time in the Alaskan oil fields had made him seem about ten years older than that. ‘Thank you so much,’ he said, as he went through. His voice sounded like loose gravel being stirred with a stick.”
Though It Didn’t
“So he tried his first line again. ‘Christ is the Lord of the nations in a spiritual sense,’ he said. A number of pony tails in the front rows bobbed because they saw that this was intended to make sense.”
Not Friendly at All
“He felt like a quarterback who had just been ear-holed by a linebacker with poor manners and a bad attitude.”
Or Grass Grow
“The apostle Paul lived one of the most thrilling lives ever lived, and yet the good professor seemed to have the ability to present the second missionary journey as something at the same level as watching paint dry.”
The Butterfly’s Nicest Pair
“He had once heard his grandfather say, in reference to his grandmother, that she was the butterfly’s boots, and this was a sentiment that Trevor now thought he understood the deeper meaning of. He had fallen for her voice—that voice!—the day of the rally out in front of the college, and then, when he had actually met her, he had decided within minutes that it would be criminal negligence on his part not to be in hot pursuit. Of course, he must not look as though he was in hot pursuit. Some girls don’t go for that. He ought to look like he was sauntering. Sauntering purposively.”
A Healthy Drill for Young Men
“It was the kind of family where the young men were expected to go off to school and then to make their own way in the world of great adventures—five years or so was respectable—before coming back and joining the firm in some useful and productive capacity. They were always expected to come back with a dragon head or two, and it was never looked down on if they came back with a beautiful and exotic woman from Ecuador or something. Trevor’s uncle had done that.”