“His name was Montaine Jacobs, which usually embarrassed him, and so he just went by Em. He was up in his office, which was high in the rafters of an old Portland warehouse. He got to it by means of a rope ladder he bought off an old fishing trawler that he found one time in a maritime salvage yard. There was a catwalk around the edges of the warehouse for the less adventurous secretaries. He liked it up there. If hipsters had eyries, his would be the one at the very tippy top. Better than Gwaihir’s.”
Maybe Most of It
“As if in evidence of this, she came in still humming a Celtic version of Psalm 84. Her singing voice was several notches above the one that Trevor had fallen in love with on the phone, and when he heard her singing her solo part on this one at the end-of-term concert, he was going to augur in. Even was a little bit more than dimly aware of the effect she was having on him, but she didn’t mind. Some of it was on purpose”
All the Way to the Right Tremolo Levels
“‘So you are saying that this was not you?’ The incredulity in Rollins’ voice had already gotten to tremolo levels.”
Maybe Two Drag Shows
“Dr. Rollins carried more envy around inside his rib cage than you could find at a drag show in San Francisco. And on this occasion, as Jake walked into Tom’s office, you didn’t need to be spiritually sensitive to notice it. You could set your iPhone out on the desk, and it would charge all by itself.”
The Importance of Prepositions
“They were both stellar students in a stellar theological program (if you don’t count all the unbelief and apostasy), but there were striking differences between the two men. A first-rate education had done into Dr. Tom’s head, while it had apparently gone straight to Dr. Jake’s.”
Make That a Stick of Warm Butter
“In short, they were not prepared at all for battle. The wedge of young radicals went through the middle of the crowd like a meat cleaver going sideways through a stick of butter”
Quick Ignorance
“But let us just remember what Mark Twain said about how a lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on his shoes. The Internet has not changed this or made us smarter. It just moves our ignorance around the world at very high rates of speed.”
With No Shade Available
“Martin Malloy was right about the impact that his story would have. The flag story was already hot, and this took the whole thing up to a high summer afternoon on Mercury’s bright side, that being the side closest to the sun.”
Taking Its Sweet Time
“The remaining twenty minutes crawled by like rapidly cooling magma.”
Clueless
“The next morning, while brushing her perfect white teeth, the truth revealed by her manifest and palpable relief over the whole thing came crashing in on her, and so she sat down and acknowledged to herself what was in fact the case. She was a goner. And he was clueless. High-minded. An office full of thick books. Accreditation visits. Scholarly articles. All of that. Stupid man. Dear stupid, stupid man.”