Build Great Sentences

It was a bright, cold day in April, and the clocks 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.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

I listened to the syncopated rhythms of the fat man as he patrolled the echoing halls of the boarding school, my personal prison. The sound of his leather-soled shoes and heavy key ring framed his every movement, and I knew exactly where he was throughout his nightly rounds. My escape, planned so carefully, was about to begin. Though I was nervous—even a little frightened—the freedom on the other side of the walls was far more important to me than any consequence I might suffer for what I was about to do.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Everything was in confusion in the Oblonsky household.

No one is staring at you, I promised myself. No one is staring at you. No one is staring at you.

But, because I couldn’t lie convincingly even to myself, I had to check.

You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy. You are at a nightclub talking to a girl with a shaved head.

Nothing changed during war. Weeds grew, the wind came and went, the sun still rose and set each day. And yet at the same time, everything changed. Loved ones left to fight, rocking chairs remained empty, and only one dish and cup would be set out at dinner.

One cold morning, about a quarter past mid-life, I awoke to the sinking feeling that I was strangely alone. Everything had come to a stark and horrific halt when the life I once knew instantly ceased. Deep down, it still hadn’t registered. The dark abyss of sleep was a sweet escape into forgetfulness, but dawn cruelly and abruptly pulled back the covers to remind me that things were not the same anymore. My world had completely changed.

Let me say this: bein a idiot is no box of chocolates. People laugh, lose patience, treat you shabby. Now they says folks sposed to be kind to the afflicted, but let me tell you— it ain’t always that way. Even so, I got no complaints, cause I reckon I done live a pretty interestin life, so to speak.

We’ve all found ourselves scanning the rows of books in a store or surfing the web, looking for parenting answers. We settle on one or more books and make our purchases. We try to do what the books say, but we still want to strangle the kid.

I can do this. I will. I have to. Liberty Auraria Longstreet stared into the gold-framed mirror hanging in the tiny, church, dressing room. She hoped to come up with an answer, a secret way to escape her fate. Instead, her image told the facts. She was to be married. Today. To Thomas Garvey. And all because Mother lay so near death that her weakened condition prevented even her attendance at the wedding.

Drops of water poured from my skin as the sun radiated straight down. A stiff southwest breeze pushed against me. The noontime was hot, but on this day in April 1891, the heat I felt did not come from the sun.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

Only dead people are allowed to have statues, but I have been given one while still alive. Already I am petrified.

You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain’t no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly–Tom’s Aunt Polly, she is–and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.

One summer afternoon Mrs. Thomas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipus, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary.

The dark man was back. Charles Graves fidgeted at the top of the staircase, keeping a wary eye on the man while attempting to eavesdrop on the ruckus developing below. It was a delicate balancing act.

I’m on the 8:04, but I’m not going into London. I’m going to Witney instead. I’m hoping that being there will jog my memory, that I’ll get to the station and I’ll see everything clearly, I’ll know. I don’t hold out much hope, but there is nothing else I can do. I can’t call Tom. I’m too ashamed, and in any case, he’s made it clear: he wants nothing more to do with me.

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

I’d finished my pie and was having a second cup of coffee when I saw him. The midnight freight had come in a few minutes before; and he was peering in on one end of the restaurant window, the end nearest the depot, shading his eyes with his hand and blinking against the light. He saw me watching him, and his face faded back into the shadows. But I knew he was still there. I knew he was waiting. The bums always size me up for an easy mark.

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had gone eighty-four days now without taking a fish. In the first forty days a boy had been with him. But after forty days without a fish the boy’s parents had told him that the old man was now definitely and finally salao, which is the word form of unlucky, and the boy had gone at their orders in another boat which caught three good fish the first week.

Kirk Tyler turned the computer monitor to face his captive.

There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it. His parents called him Eustace Clarence and masters called him Scrubb. I can’t tell you how his friends spoke to him, for he had none.

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men.

On the last day of Jace Wilson’s life, the fourteen-year-old stood on a quarry ledge staring at cool, still water and finally understood something his mother had told him years before: Trouble might come for you when you showed fear, but trouble doubled-down when you lied about being afraid. At the time, Jace hadn’t known exactly what she was talking about. Today he did.