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1.
It was about eleven o'clock in the morning, mid October, with the sun not shining and a look of hard wet rain in the clearness of the foothills. I was wearing my powder-blue suit, with dark blue shirt, tie and display handkerchief, black brogues, black wool socks with dark blue clocks on them.

2.
It was a bright cold day in April, and the clock were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly through the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quickly enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

3.
Bobby Garfield's father had been one of those fellows who start losing their hair in their twenties and are completely bald by the age of forty-five or so. Randall Garfield was spared this extremity by dying of a heart attack at thirty-six. He was a real-estate agent, and breathed his last on the floor of someone else's house.

4.
Garp's mother, Jenny Fields, was arrested in Boston in 1942 for wounding a man in a movie theatre. This was shortly after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor and people were being tolerant of soldiers, because suddenly everyone was a soldier, but Jenny Fields was quite firm in her intolerance of the behaviour of men in general and soldiers in particular.

5.
The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. From the towns in its high valleys and the ports on its narrow bays many a Gontishman has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in their cities as wizard or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander working magic from isle to isle of Earthsea.

6.
When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm
I know this is paradise

7.
My desert-island, all-time, top five most memorable split-ups, in chronological order:
1) Allison Ashworth
2) Penny Hardwick
3) Jackie Allen
4) Charlie Nicholson
5) Sarah Kendrew.
These were the ones who really hurt. Can you see your name in that lot, Laura?

8.
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressing-gown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air.

9.
Jewel and I come up from the field, following the path in single file. Although I am fifteen feet ahead of him, anyone watching us from the cottonhouse can see Jewel's frayed and broken straw hat a full head above my own.

10.
Her is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle, born in Brooklyn and raised in a shuffle of dreary upstate towns.

Hive-spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramp, he survived childhood; at the state university, hand clapped over his chin, he camouflaged torment with smiles and silence.

shutterbug_12

Oh, there was always a Jamie, a good-lad-Jamie, a neat, nippy, darty, agile scrum-halfy little Jamie. Jamie could swarm up ropes like an Arthur Ransome hero, he could fly up window frames, leap vaulting horses, flip elegant underwater turns at the end of each lap of the pool, somersault backwards and forwards off the trapeze and swing back up with his neat little buttocks twinkling and winking with fitness and firmness and cute little Jamieness. Cunt.

literaryquotes

      I let go of the gun and took hold of his wrists. They were greasy and hard to hold. The Indian breathed gutterally and set me down with a jar that lifted the top of my head. He had my wrists now, instead of me having his. He twisted them behind me fast and a knee like a corner stone went into my back. He bent me. I can be bent. I'm not the City Hall. He bent me.
      I tried to yell, for no reason at all. Breath panted in my throat and couldn't get out. The Indian threw me sideways and got a body scissors on me as I fell. He had me in a barrel. His hands went to my neck. Sometimes I wake up in the night. I feel them there and I smell the smell of him. I feel the breath fighting and losing and the greasy fingers digging in. Then I get up and take a drink and turn the radio on.

sangria_lila

Front centre, touching one another, three identical grey urns about one yard high. From each a head protrudes, the neck held fast in the urn's mouth. The heads are those, from left to right as seen from auditorium, of W2, M and W1. They face undeviatingly front throughout the play. Faces so lost to age and aspect as to seem almost part of urns. But no masks.
Their speech is provoked by a spotlight projected on faces alone.
The transfer of light from one face to another is immediate.
No blackout, i.e. return to almost complete darkness of opening, except where indicated.
The response to light is immediate.
Faces impassive throughout. Voices toneless except where an expression is indicated.
Rapid tempo throughout.
The curtain rises on a stage in almost complete darkness. Urns just discernible. Five seconds.
Faint spots simultaneously on three faces. Three seconds. Voices faint, largely unintelligible.

Director (D).
His female assistant (A).
Protagonist (P).
Luke, in charge of the lighting, offstage (L).

Rehearsal. Final touches to the last scene. Bare stage. A and L have just set the lighting. D has arrived.

D in an armchair downstage audience left. Fur coat. Fur toque to match. Age and physique unimportant.

A standing beside him. White overall. Bare head. Pencil on ear. Age and physique unimportant.
P midstage standing on a black block 18 inches high. Black wide-brimmed hat. Black dressing-gown to ankles. Barefoot. Head bowed. Hands in pockets. Age and physique unimportant.

D and A contemplate P. Long pause.