“The development officer for Choctaw Valley was usually all grins and spectacles, always ready with a hearty handshake.”
Flags Out Front, p. 8
Just Creepy
“One ACLU attorney named Greenbaum was particularly flummoxed, and spoke quite sharply to his colleagues about it. ‘Urination I understand, and defecation I understand. Setting the damn thing on fire is clearly protected speech. That’s why we come to work in the morning. That’s why we’re here. That’s what freedom means. But subordinated honor? That is just creepy.’”
Flags Out Front, p. 8
Like a Wet Rope
“The number of compelling human interest stories had plummeted, and the number of twenty-four hour cable news channels had not plummeted. No news, no interesting wars, and no celebrity meltdowns were to be had anywhere. Slow news days dragged slow news weeks after them like a wet rope, and producers of news programs were starting to get desperate.”
Flags Out Front, p. 7
An Aquifer of Moxie
“But President Collins had himself some hidden reserves, an aquifer of moxie far beneath the deepest wells he had ever had to use. But even he didn’t know about any of that, and I am running ahead. All the writers’ workshops say not to do that, and especially not in the third paragraph.”
Flags Out Front, p. 2
A Little Canticles Pun
“She pushed against his chest, a little halfheartedly, and sat up. ‘Do you like my hair like this?’ ‘I love it when you wear it up like that,’ he said earnestly. ‘Your barrettes are twin fawns grazing among the lilies.’”
Nothing Whatever
“John sat there for a moment, scratching his beard, trying to look both judicious and wise. You and me both, sister, he was thinking. But pastors don’t have the option of saying things like ‘This particular sin has me by the throat too. Nothing whatever can be done about it. Go away.”
Books to Discard
“But when it finally happened to her, the whole thing was far more illuminating than she had thought it would be and went all the way back to her girlhood. Vanity, selfishness, conceit, superficiality, covetousness, ambition—all of them tumbled off the top bookshelf of her mind and were just lying there on the floor, waiting for someone to pick them all up and throw them away.”
Thruppa-da-da
“So he just sat, not paying attention to much of anything. But occasionally a phrase from the prayer book would create a little spiritual thruppa-da-da, much like what happens when you forget to put the lawn mower in the garage for the winter, and try to get it started in the spring. Nothing much there, but occasionally there might be a noise that might indicate that at some point in the indefinite future there might be something there. Every three weeks or so, the Rev. Jane Hutchens, for that was her name, would read something profound that Thomas Cranmer had written in the sixteenth century, Lord knows why anymore, and Chad would shift in his seat. Thruppa-da-da.”
Not a Sailing Boat, for Pity’s Sake
“He had been very diligent in his own way, but he was like a guy putting together a jigsaw puzzle of a lighthouse, but one where things got mixed up in the closet, and the picture on the box lid was that of a sailing boat. He was diligent, but was making slow progress.”
Not an Understated Effect, in Other Words
“The talk had been on confession of sin, and the effect of it had been the equivalent of dropping a hand grenade in your average living room goldfish bowl.”