“Maria Barancho had been a fixture at Choctaw Valley for some years now, but she was an odd-out sort of fixture. She was a black-haired, brown-eyed Italian in the midst of a bunch of pale Celts who, for some reason, liked to think of themselves as Anglo-Saxons. This is like a German confusing himself with a Frenchman, but the history is admittedly complicated.”
An Acquired Taste
“He was a sturdy young man—a fellow that people usually considered good looking, eventually and somewhat reluctantly, after they had gotten over their first shock. Trevor was an acquired taste.”
The Best Kind of Ruckus
“The day was a beautiful one, and the birds in the surrounding foliage, unaware of the human drama that was gathering down below them on the asphalt, just continued on with their melodious ruckus.”
Real Hearty
“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.”