Oh, the Splices You’ll See!

I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it? – Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies

In a previous post I explained what comma splices are, and how and when to avoid them. Now I’d like to share a few more examples of their appearance in edited text (they are spliced into this post), and to discuss some of the advice and commentary on their use.

I had worn the wrong shoes, they had heels. – Moy McCrory, The Wrong Vocation

The blue, igloo-roof over the rock went away to a vast distance, the visible world expanded with a leap. – William Golding, Pincher Martin

Some people describe comma splices as an error, a horror, a nightmare, an insult — something terrible, to be dreaded and denounced. We are urged to spurn them, to expunge them swiftly and severely as though they were insidious “germs” in our otherwise unsullied text. Even when they are acknowledged to be occasionally acceptable, we are told to avoid them to be on the safe side. “[O]nly do it if you’re famous,” Lynne Truss warns. Leave it to the experts.

This kind of advice can be helpful to learners, or writers who want a quick yes–no answer. But it also tends to be simplistic and misleading, failing to reflect the subtlety and complexity with which skilled writers consciously use comma splices. Moreover, when authorities dismiss certain techniques out of hand without mentioning the breadth of their usage in various stylistic and historical contexts, they can perpetuate fear of making mistakes and ignorance of how language works.

Apes have flat feet, we have sprung arches. – Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines

Miss Doreen Valvona was a good reader, she had the best eyes in the ward. – Muriel Spark, Memento Mori

My throat is dry, I can hardly swallow. – James Brown, The L.A. Diaries

There’s no clearer indication of this intolerance than the fact that comma splices are also known as comma errors, comma faults, and comma blunders. Yet they were not always considered ungrammatical; this is a relatively recent development. Current convention holds that they are inappropriate for many formal contexts, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Robert Burchfield, in The New Fowler’s Modern English Usage, comments that “wide variation can be seen in the work of many contemporary writers and, even more so, in that of earlier centuries. . . . this habit of writing comma-joined sentences is not uncommon in both older and present-day fiction.” Non-fiction, too:

Don’t get excited and rush around accusing people of stealing your Corona, just relax. – James Thurber, The Pleasure Cruise, and How to Survive It

“They weren’t doing anything wrong, there was nothing to stop them.” – Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death

A self can contain or be contained by something that is either less or more than a self, it can never contain or be contained by a self. – Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy

The variations are infinite, the formula remains the same. – Arthur Koestler, Janus.

We saw Bob’s cousins Denny and Donny, they live outside Las Vegas where they race cars on weekends. – Garrison Keillor

Bryan Garner, in A Dictionary of Modern American Usage, summarises as follows: “Most usage authorities accept comma splices when (1) the clauses are short and closely related, (2) there is no danger of a miscue, and (3) the context is informal.” I’ll quote from a few that are close at hand.

The Fowler brothers, masters of the blunt put-down, write that “among the signs that more particularly betray the uneducated writer is inability to see when a comma is not a sufficient stop” (The King’s English). Despite this forbidding survey, they note that while it is “roughly true that grammatically independent sentences should be parted by at least a semicolon; […] there are very large exceptions to this”.

He must grow, I must disappear. – Hermann Hesse, The Journey to the East

It was dark black water, secret, and the air was filled with murmurings and rustlings, it was as if they were walking into another world that had been kept secret from everyone and now they had found it. – Daphne Du Maurier, The Pool

But later that day, Godfrey found him, he had been poisoned. – Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea

The causes don’t matter, the enemy can be anybody. – Anthony Burgess, 1985

One of the Fowlers’ pedagogical heirs, Ernest Gowers, took a hard line on comma splices. In The Complete Plain Words, he described as “incorrect” the use of commas “between two independent sentences not linked by a conjunction” — except when there are more than two independent sentences, and a conjunction links the last two, e.g. “Dogs bark, sheep bleat, and cows moo” (cf. asyndeton).

Gowers’s book was intended to improve official English, so his guidance need not be taken to apply across the board. Poets can relax: comma use owes more to context and personal taste than the stricter grammarians might have us believe. Even The Elements of Style allows for exceptions, albeit stingily: “If the clauses are very short, and are alike in form, a comma is usually permissible.”

Doors closed, water ran in the sink. – Beryl Bainbridge, A Quiet Life

People with ASD can certainly become angry and upset, they are not robots. – Daniel Levitin, This Is Your Brain On Music

But she couldn’t go to stay with them for the first time in this predicament, it would be ridiculous. – Maeve Binchy, Shepherd’s Bush

The marines were elated that the amateur smut had made it past the censors, it was another coup! – Anthony Swofford, Jarhead

The Columbia Guide to Standard American English tells us that “edited English almost never lets commas splices through, so we seldom see them in print”, but that “in fiction, poetry, and other imaginative literary forms you may occasionally encounter comma faults used deliberately to create special effects such as informality or another mood”. Italics are the author’s own; note the use of the prejudicial term “comma fault”, and the heavy underestimation of the device’s occurrence in edited writing.

The more descriptivist Pocket Guide to English Usage from Merriam-Webster refers to comma splices as “fairly common in casual and unedited prose”. Some books, such as the next two quoted, positively teem with comma splices:

They were nothing like the gulls and terns, their black-and-white had a special air, they went a little beyond being birds. – Russell Hoban, Turtle Diary

Claire’s tears had stopped but stood unwiped, she seemed not to have noticed them. – John Banville, The Sea

I know how it is with him, that’s why I never bother saying much. – Leonora Brito, Body and Soul

He saw no individuals, he was conscious of a froth of pink faces, of waving arms and garments, he felt the occult influence of a vast crowd pouring over him, buoying him up. – H. G. Wells, When the Sleeper Wakes

Far from being a literary evil, then, comma splices are often fine, but they create a noticeably casual effect that is widely considered ill-suited to contexts such as essays, reports, and business writing. They are seldom seen in news reporting except in dialogue, where they can serve to convey an informal speaking tone:

“There are no niceties in Klingon, I think that’s why a lot of people like it, it’s very straightforward.” – BBC News.

“The wireless-transmission efficiency is never better than a copper wire, that is not possible” – Wall Street Journal

“It’s wonderful news to hear of a resighting of this animal, where it’s heading is the burning question” – BBC, Earth News.

Or removed altogether, leaving run-on sentences that lend a breathless effect:

“Usually fish are in the water now they are falling out of the sky what if anything bigger falls out of the sky next?” – The Telegraph

[Post title is a reference to this wonderful book.]

* * *

Updates: John E. McIntyre has added his thoughts on comma splices at his blog You Don’t Say. Mr McIntyre is a self-described (and thoroughly sensible) moderate prescriptivist with considerable editing experience, so his insights are most welcome.

Lane Greene revisits the subject at the Economist‘s language blog, Johnson. He has sworn off splices since his English teacher “marked down any paper with even a single comma splice by two letter grades”, and he concludes that it’s “probably not worth the readers it will irritate”. I disagree, but his point is well made.

There are lots more comma splices quoted below, from books I’ve read since writing this post, but eventually I had to stop: it was getting out of hand. Despite collecting 1–3 examples maximum per book, my file soon topped 10,000 words and has since doubled.

I washed this by hand, it looks like new. – Alice Munro, The Peace of Utrecht

They will ask me in court, they will maraud me with questions. – Edna O’Brien, Johnny I Hardly Knew You

But it is already obvious that one cannot study “the impassivity” of Keaton’s face by itself, one thing leads to another, the face leads to action and action leads to the body. – J.-P. Lebel, Buster Keaton

He told me it was my friend Koichiro, he was going to be at Galerie Coupe Chou in Shinjuku on Tuesday at eight with some friends, I should come by if I had time. – Barry Eisler, Rain Fall

His face is not angry, it does not have any expression. – Paul Murray, Skippy Dies

He whined, sulked, was sick, demanded his grandmother, bit Lisa’s finger, disturbed other travellers with his screams. – D. M. Thomas, The White Hotel

Income taxes were cut, foreign companies were courted with massive tax breaks and the promise of light regulation. – Fintan O’Toole, Ship of Fools

The seat belts are good, they discourage sudden movements. – A.M. Homes, May We Be Forgiven

A silence had fallen in on the three hillwalkers, it had a knuckly and mannish grip. – Kevin Barry, There Are Little Kingdoms

That little woman was probably right, it could be a matter of nerves, nerves are the very devil… – Jose Saramago, Blindness

He never goes out without us, of course, we can’t trust him to strangers. – A. L. Kennedy, A Perfect Possession

Murphy’s respect for the imponderables of personality was profound, he took the miscarriage of his tribute very nicely. – Samuel Beckett, Murphy

So often I forget something important, I just overlook it. – Alexander Luria, The Man with a Shattered World

No more is possible, no more is needed. – Ken Wilber, Eye to Eye

You don’t want your truck to break down, it can be dangerous. – John Updike, Terrorist

It is capable of power and depth, it has a timbre that can express grief or desire like no other voice I have ever heard. – Deirdre Madden, Molly Fox’s Birthday

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are grey faces that peer over my shoulder. – William Golding, Free Fall

His body has been preserved, it’s regarded as a miracle. – Ken Bruen, London Boulevard

That’s what comes from seventeen years of being married, I knew that the motion meant that the drugs were on a small ledge behind some recessed lights we had installed inside a wall bench at the entrance to the bedroom. – Nicholas Pileggi, Wiseguy

The sun was down, only the upper sky glowed. – Penelope Fitzgerald, The Blue Flower

Orvie was being very helpful, he organized dances and games, he had passed plates of chicken and ice cream, he danced with some of the more awful wives. – Edna Ferber, Come and Get It

The snow banked high against the lodge, only the upper panes of the windows admitted a gray light. – Thomas Harris, Hannibal Rising

There was a prim little worktable with a gathered sack underneath of puce silk, there was a rosewood bureau and a mahogany sofa table. – Agatha Christie, Sleeping Murder

I suppose the devil’s grandmother knows so much about the real psychology of a woman, I didn’t. – Carl Jung, in a letter to James Joyce

There are other options, it’s only midnight. – John O’Brien, Leaving Las Vegas

The windows overlooking the Quays now shut, the barge looked uninhabited. – Anaïs Nin, Under a Glass Bell

We still have our old big dog, he is eight years old. – C. S. Lewis, in a letter to his godchild

It was a shabby hotel, the yellow-washed walls needed a coat of paint as they hadn’t been done since the time De Valera came to that village during the election campaign five years before. – Edna O’Brien, Irish Revel

The noises terrified me, I had heard nothing like it before. – Simon Yates, Against the Wall

I must construct this home as a symbol, whether I live in it or not is not important, it is enough that it is here, but there is no heart to it, of course. – Gore Vidal, in a letter to Anaïs Nin, quoted in her journals.

We’ve got a foundation for the argument, now we need a solid framework. – George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, example sentence in Metaphors We Live By

Brodie’s disapproval of the Girl Guides had jealousy in it, there was an inconsistency, a fault. – Muriel Spark, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

There are no personal possessions now, there are no inheritances. – Jorges Luis Borges, Utopia of a tired man

I didn’t know his family name or what he had done, I only knew that he was dead. – Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress

I don’t think the bromide had any lasting effect, the only way to stop a British soldier feeling randy is to load bromide into a 300 lb shell and fire it at him from the waist down. – Spike Milligan, “Rommel?” “Gunner Who?”

This simple need is forgotten, what passes for simple prose nowadays is a mechanical stringing together of stereotyped word-groups, without regard for the images contained in them. – Robert Graves, The White Goddess

By the time I saw it, there wasn’t much of it left, even the doors were missing. – Anne Enright, The Gathering

He had always had plenty of friends, he would have met with a friendly reception in almost every town in the region. – Hermann Hesse, Knulp

But you still lead during this, the guide does not lead under these circumstances. – John C. Lilly, The Centre of the Cyclone

He was alone, that was the outstanding fact. – Algernon Blackwood, The Valley of the Beasts

But he wasnay really worried about it, whether one way or the other, as long as he kept the concentraion going, that was the fucking main thing, no letting the head wander. – James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late

‘I knew you’d take it well, I knew you’d take it splendidly.’ – Iris Murdoch, A Severed Head

I just haven’t felt like a haircut for a while, there’s nothing else to my hairdo but that. – Daniel Woodrell, Give Us A Kiss

I had never eaten kidneys, mother was prejudiced against them. – Ita Daly, Ellen

There’s much too little snow on the ground this year, everything is bare ice. – Peter Habeler, Everest: Impossible Victory

This is the zone we know best, it is the one in which our heads, and the Stevenson screens that hold most of our weather-recording instruments, lie. – Lyall Watson, Heaven’s Breath: A Natural History of the Wind

The sun moved over the tree and down, the shadow of the leaves crept back towards the bole. – William Golding, Clonk Clonk

In myth, the tripartite pattern of signifier, signified, and sign has a double function, it not only “makes us understand something . . . it imposes it on us” (Barthes, p. 102). – Debra Merskin, Truly Toffee and Raisin Hell: A Textual Analysis of Lipstick Names

People would see them, she didn’t care. – William Trevor, Love and Summer

Pellig ignored the terrified workers and skimmed on, his feet barely touched the floor. – Philip K. Dick, Solar Lottery

Rain weighed the pewter sky, the wind blew damp and constant. – Jeff Abbott, Panic

Knowledge of word-meaning grows, it undergoes development and change. – Margaret Donaldson, Children’s Minds

The sense of necessity – that famously ambiguous master – relieves me from small trepidations, the Big Fear supplants small ones of adolescence. – Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation

On the sea a single vertical white line is highlighted against the pink skyline, this represents a sail. – Vanessa Potts, Monet

The escalators did not go up and down, they were only steps. – Russell Hoban, Kleinzeit

He had a couple of hit records, his TV show was big for a while. – James Ellroy, L. A. Confidential

But in a more fundamental way, there is nothing special about those particular universes, they are each just the results of one of many equally likely combinations of cosmic coincidences. – John Gribbin, In Search of the Multiverse

Steel ships are magnetic, that is why they must swing to adjust their compasses. – George Griffith, The Raid of ‘Le Vengeur’

Her left foot sported a white pump, her right foot was bare. – Walter Mosley, White Butterfly

Dust rose, concealing everything, only the tops of the tall spears glittered. – Franz Kafka, The Knock at the Manor Gate

Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight he asked a boon. – Saki (H. H. Munro), Sredni Vashtar

It is quite dark now, all of the cars have their headlights on, lighting his face briefly from different angles. – Keith Ridgway, ‘The Problem with German’, in Standard Time

That settled the question of her sanity, so far as I was concerned she hadn’t any. – Dashiell Hammett, The Dain Curse

It was the Master who had taught him how to guard sheep, it was he who had told the dog what to do and when to do it. – Joyce Marsh, The Shepherd’s Dog

The stories belong to a whole spectrum of reality, they do not mix with cults and bits and pieces. – Idries Shah, A Perfumed Scorpion

He’s working on the tendons of his other leg, Strauss is still performing his rapid-fire volleys. – Ian McEwan, Saturday

You cannot develop a personality with physics alone, the rest of life must be worked in. – Richard Feynman, Don’t You Have Time to Think?

There was the lace collar, there were the pink fingers. – Margaret Mahy, The Haunting

But they don’t know you, they don’t care. – Charles L. Grant, ‘Name That Tune’ (in Monsters In Our Midst)

She struggled to hold back the tears, she pressed her lips together, she choked down the sobs that still shook her chest. – Philip Pullman, Northern Lights

It was early, she was home. – Josephine Hart, Damage

They are presented as apprehended by a special kind of awareness, they are seen in the light of one fundamental experience. – J. W. N. Sullivan, Beethoven

I’ll watch any documentary which features them, I’ll read every book. – Antony Sher, ‘Eugene Terre’Blanche’, in Heroes and Villains: An Anthology of Animosity and Admiration

The mud didn’t dissolve in water, he had to scrape and rub at it with this fingers. – Denis Johnson, Tree of Smoke

But I could see my own youngsters in Jamie, that’s why I ran. – Colum McCann, ‘As If There Were Trees’, in Silver Threads of Hope, edited by Sinéad Gleeson

They come back from America, they bring the slop bucket with them. – Harold Pinter, The Homecoming

Not while it was lit, of course, that would be uncomfortable. – Mark Forsyth, The Horologicon

“No,” said Picard, “the hill has tired me, it is nothing serious, please go on.” – William Kotzwinkle, Fata Morgana

They were the best of friends, they saved each other’s life countless times, they laughed and talked together over campfires long into the night. – Philip Pullman, The Subtle Knife

“And thank you very much for being so kind and listening, and for giving us this meal, it was really nice.” – Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

But look, she’s young, sometimes I feel almost like a parent. – Ethan Coen, Gates of Eden

The idea that languages are maps is not literally true, it is a metaphor to indicate the fact that languages describe states of affairs, more or less, accurately. – F. H. George, Semantics

I don’t shake, I don’t whimper. – Nicola Barker, Five Miles From Outer Hope

“You can play on the slope, just watch out for the snakes.” – Robert Crais, Indigo Slam

“Clement looked into it, there’s no danger.” – Jonathan Lethem, Girl in Landscape

“We’ve had one major leak, we can’t afford to have another.” – Robert Crais, L.A. Requiem

His face was blank, nothing registered with him, he did not see what was happening. – Keith Ridgway, The Long Falling

The objective part is the sum total of whatsoever at any given time we may be thinking of, the subjective part is the inner ‘state’ in which the thinking comes to pass. – William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

God is great, we know not his ways. – Mark Rutherford, quoted by William James in The Varieties of Religious Experience

He didn’t care, he’d miss it if he had to. – Michael Connelly, The Last Coyote

This was concerning, this was very concerning. – George Saunders, ‘Tenth of December’

I doubt if they had seen a warthog before, it was certainly the first one which we had noticed near the dens. – Hugo van Lawick, Solo: The Story of an African Wild Dog

She can move through the woods like a shadow, you have to give her that. – Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

Wet leaves blew into my face, the lighthouse beam blinded me, the wind shrieked wildly in the telephone wires. – Claire Kilroy, Tenderwire

Mick and his wife looked at everything with astonishment, they had never seen such plates and dishes before, and didn’t think they could ever admire them enough, the very sight almost took away their appetites. – T. Crofton Croker, Irish Folk Stories for Children

I had almost forgotten Yuriko, it was the first time I had thought of her in years. – Deirdre Madden, Remembering Light and Stone

He has one value, there is no single place that you can think of in the four parts of the wheel of the world that the black horse will not take you there. – from ‘The Black Horse’, in Celtic Fairy Tales, ed. by Joseph Jacobs

Her reflection wasn’t sharply defined, the edges were blurred. – Michael Scott, Vampyre

But David wasn’t really a fighter, that side of him was kept under. – John Clay, R. D. Laing: A Divided Self

They wore their winter coats of grey, their rumps were pure white. – John Wyatt, The Shining Levels

The hawk turned and skated off down the wind and vanished beyond the cape of the mountain, a single feather fell. – Cormac McCarthy, The Crossing

She was thin, her hair was wild and dry, her eyes staring. – China Miéville, Un Lun Dun

Mrs Constanza happened to be shopping there at the same time, what a coincidence. – Alison Dye, The Sense of Things

The birds kept still as if in exhaustion, the jungle did not stir, it was like a muggy July afternoon above fields of ripe grain shimmering in the heat. – Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless

The corpse no longer bled from its numerous wounds, the heart had ceased to beat. – Stanisław Lem, The Star Diaries

Most of these women did not leave the men in their lives, they engaged in constructive strategies of resistance. – bell hooks, All About Love

The rest probably did not realise how important such a moment could be, they did not appreciate it. – Brian Masters, The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

“Corbett’s reputation is sound enough, so is Pym’s,” he said almost to himself… – Patrick O’Brian, The Mauritius Command

It was too soon, he began struggling again. – Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child

Some had eyes on stalks, some had what might have been as many as sixteen legs. – Stephen King, The Gunslinger

“I’ll have our team there at eight, we can go over what we’ve got and take it from there.” – Michael Connelly, Angels Flight

He repeatedly claims that transfer occurred on a one to one basis, sound A in Irish is transferred and substitutes sound B in English. – Raymond Hickey, ‘Lenition in Irish English’

“I have an aunt living there, she has quite a bit of money, she invited me over after my mother died.” – Brian Moore, The Temptation of Eileen Hughes

Entering the studio, he moved along the east wall, looking for the outline of a door, the parted drapes admitted enough light for him to see. – Richard Matheson, Earthbound

“No one ever calls you back, they don’t reply to letters.” – Declan Hughes, The Dying Breed

“I had trouble getting to sleep, there were Hell’s Angels partying upstairs.” – Lawrence Block, Hit List

He wasn’t like anyone I knew, his face was long and had a grey colour. – Edna O’Brien, Girl With Green Eyes

Sometimes one of these magazines morphs into the mainstream and an actual paycheck, sometimes one of them sinks without a trace. – Marcus Boon, in the foreword to Nomad Codes by Erik Davis

His name was Edward Hutchins, he was English, he was fifty-four. – Ira Levin, Rosemary’s Baby

That the two were more or less conscious rivals for Rissner’s confidence was undeniable and inevitable, if only because of proximity, that they were no less motivated toward upward mobility that any young executives anywhere seems evident from their career histories. – Steven Bach, Final Cut: Dreams and Disaster in the Making of Heaven’s Gate

They let you do that in honours, you were much freer. – Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Jesus rubbed his knuckles in his eyes, he pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping to clear his sight. – John Crace, Quarantine

He was dark, small, ferocious, the light in his eyes was primitive, he was more Spanish than French, more Latin than Gallic. – Oliver La Farge, ‘La Spécialité de M. Duclos’

“She doesn’t want to go back there, she doesn’t want to remember.” – Declan Hughes, All the Dead Voices

I kept thinking of the others, they must have reached the top of the hill ages ago. – Niccolò Ammaniti, I’m Not Scared

We have health and safety laws which force companies to comply with regulations, we don’t leave it up to them to decide. – Mark Thomas, As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela

He never told him how he’d located him, he just called. – Harlan Ellison, ‘Shatterday’

Increasingly it seems to me that the strength of American sf is the short story, the strength of British sf is the novel. – Peter Nicholls, ‘1975: The Year in Science Fiction’, from Nebula Award Stories, edited by Ursula K. Le Guin

“They might continue to evolve, they might degenerate, they might conflict to the point of destruction or gross modification of any or all of them.” – Roger Zelazny, Home is the Hangman

Broken panes of glass that had been patched up with bits of timber were replaced, sometimes a whole new window was installed. – Alice Taylor, To School Through the Fields

“It’s a romance picture, the girls like that.” – George Pelecanos, The Big Blowdown

Less culpably, but no less tellingly, the National Economic and Social Council pointed out soon after the crash that Ireland did not have a crisis, it faced five crises. – Fintan O’Toole, Enough is Enough: How to Build a New Republic

His feet stabbed, he swerved and slowed. – William Golding, The Inheritors

“I don’t know that he was rich but he was comfortably well off, he owned furniture stores and made a good living from them.” – Laurence Block, A Ticket to the Boneyard

The bathroom door was still closed, the water was still running, Janet Simon was still smoking, Ellen Lang was still standing with her arms crossed, cold. – Robert Crais, The Monkey’s Raincoat

Inner circles form and compete with other inner circles, wizard wars with witch. – Erik Davis, Nomad Codes

He hadn’t been a bad guy, he just had a lousy job. – Sara Paretsky, ‘Dealer’s Choice’, in Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, edited by Byron Preiss

The car had to be coming here, the road ended here. – Daniel Woodrell, Winter’s Bone

Who remembers Mary Dunne, the actress, who even in the business remembers me? – Brian Moore, I Am Mary Dunne

One had died under interrogation, the other three had been imprisoned in Guantanamo. – Robert Harris, The Ghost

He arched his back at the window, the breadth of his shoulder blacked out the window spaces. – Aidan Mathews, Adventures in a Bathyscope

What they say doesn’t mean anything, what they ask doesn’t mean anything. – Raymond Chandler, ‘The Pencil’

“Sacateca is a man of knowledge, he is not in the same class with you fellows,” don Juan said sternly. – Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality

Today Kleist gives pleasure, most of Goethe is a classroom bore. – Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

The accent may or may not have been the joke, it was too early to tell. – W.R. Philbrick, ‘The Empty Sleeve’, in Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, edited by Byron Preiss

His mother has retired for the night, he and Norma are downstairs clearing up the children’s mess. – J.M. Coetzee, The Lives of Animals

But there was no one there, it did not open, no one left or came in. – S. J. Watson, Before I Go to Sleep

The empties clatter into the fire, smokes mingle, dusk settles, there is laughter. – Daniel Woodrell, ‘Black Step’, in The Outlaw Album

She was used to not talking, she could stand that well enough. – Ron Rash, The Cove

“I look over the rail to downstairs, he’s in the foyer.” – Elmore Leonard, Mr. Paradise

If it had been about the Moon, the answer would be no, but it wasn’t, it was about the Earth. – Andrew Smith, Moondust: In Search of the Men Who Fell to Earth

He did not know what to make of it, he often wandered its little hallways in amazement. – China Miéville, Kraken

Doors slam along the length of the train, a whistle blows, they shudder forwards. – Robert Harris, Enigma

If Glynn left, he would not return, that much was plain. – Claire Kilroy, All Names Have Been Changed

I had no intention of allowing the History of the Eiger’s North Face to become a mere calendar of climbs, its foreground theme was to be the men who had done those climbs. – Heinrich Harrer, The White Spider

“Liz, you’re exactly the same, it’s fantastic to see you!” – Angela Bourke, ‘Ham’, in By Salt Water

He was scowling, his lips pouted, his eyes were half shut while he noticed everything that went on. – Frank O’Connor, The Holy Door

Cosmic energy, individual energy, sexual energy, intellectual energy, all are prāṇa. – B. K. S. Iyengar, The Tree of Yoga

We were strangers, really, perhaps we were always strangers. – A. D. Miller, Snowdrops

It lit up the one boot holding the length of beech in place, it lit the arms moving the blade slowly up and down as it tore through the beech, white chips milling out on the chain. – John McGahern, The Wine Breath

Irish motor-car assemblers made a rough-and-ready job of it, my father used to say, the Austins and Morrises and Vauxhalls that came direct from British factories were twice the cars. – William Trevor, The Raising of Elvira Tremlett

Sheelagh Burke was at school with me, we both attended the Dominican Convent in Portstewart. – Anne Devlin, Passages

Some studies say 70 percent, other say 30. – Martin Amis, Night Train

The town behind them was desolate, he was sure not a soul remained there. – Denis Johnson, Fiskadoro

I don’t know when he started to lose his hair, my mother never discussed it. – Anne Enright, The Wig My Father Wore

Maxwell did not set out to make a theory of light, he set out to unify electricity and magnetism. – Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics

“I caught that case, I was the first person in there after the blues who responded to the 911 call.” – Lawrence Block, A Dance at the Slaughterhouse

Memories drift loose, images collide. – Paul Broks, Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology

There were five planets, there were five regular solids. – J.D. Bernal, The Extension of Man: A History of Physics Before 1900

But I don’t mind, it’s what I want. (Celia) – Nancy Friday, Women on Top

The building is built of red brick and snuggled behind a stand of rubber trees, most people would mistake it for a dental office, except that it is also snuggled behind a ten-foot fence topped with concertina wire. – Robert Crais, Demolition Angel

She wasn’t on the water, she wasn’t in the house. – Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

He does not know, he does not feel. – Theodore Roszak, The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology

It was in vain that the poor maiden declared that she could do no such thing, the chamber was locked and she remained alone. – The Brothers Grimm, Grimms’ Fairy Tales

I worried about the tires, certainly they were the cheapest. – Denis Johnson, The Name of the World

The frescoes are large, some of them are more than thirty feet wide. – Elizabeth Elias Kaufman, Goya

She heard them surrender themselves to their hot, their liquid fate, she listened to their noiseless acceptance of this completely unforeseen development. – Lucy Ellmann, Varying Degrees of Hopelessness

There was nothing unusual about them, it was the way of much of the world. – Jenny Diski, Like Mother

Maybe he was even kind of a weird person, some people thought he was a switch-hitter. – Elmore Leonard, Stick

Both merely record the life forms they see, they do not regulate them. – Ammon Shea, Bad English: A History of Linguistic Aggravation

His face is a snowfall on old mountains, the feet are fields. – Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds

Two laughs in unison, these were my rewards. – Flann O’Brien, At Swim-Two-Birds

That was a weekend, this is midweek. – Aron Ralston, 127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

They would be too tired to eat much, it was on their faces. – Stephen King, ‘Stationary Bike’, in Just After Sunset

They couldn’t hear me anyhow, their ears were full of fog. – Ross Raisin, God’s Own Country

We are more aware of the obstacles, we are more aware of the falsities that we have to peel away. – Anaïs Nin, A Woman Speaks

The next day, several commanders came to Ender or sent soldiers to tell him not to worry, most of them thought the extra practice sessions were a good idea, he should keep it up. – Orson Scott Card, Ender’s Game

There was no light or water in the place but that didn’t matter, he wasn’t civilised. – Derek Raymond, I Was Dora Suarez

It was a Sunday, the administration wing was empty. – Michael Connelly, Trunk Music

The sun was all over the sky, no clouds trifled with it. – Daniel Woodrell – Woe To Live On

Kugel didn’t like attics, he never had. – Shalom Auslander, Hope: A Tragedy

The air was stirless, there was not even the rustle of a withered leaf along the passage. – J. Sheridan Le Fanu, ‘Sir Dominick’s Bargain’, in The Supernatural Omnibus II, ed. Montague Summers

Know whence you came, there is really no limit to where you can go. – James Baldwin, Fire Next Time

Morality is a sickness peculiar to humans, the good life is a refinement of the virtues of animals. – John Gray, Straw Dogs

The factory system demands a transformation of human nature, the “working paroxysms” of the artisan or outworker must be methodised until the man is adapted to the discipline of the machine.” – E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class

The pastry is golden, the buns have risen. – Claire Keegan, ‘The Forester’s Daughter’, in Walk the Blue Fields

This meeting felt momentous to me, it had the potential of making sense of the maze I’d wandered into when I chanced upon her story. – Tobias Wolff, Old School

“I have brought back your old hunter’s spirit, perhaps through it you will change.” – Carlos Castaneda, Journey To Ixtlan

Some proverbs are simply imbecile, others are immoral. – Joseph Conrad, Gaspar Ruiz

“You’re a rich man, that’s obvious enough.” – Robert Harris, The Fear Index

It wouldn’t be an outrage if I didn’t go to Antarctica, almost everybody didn’t. – Jenny Diski, Skating to Antarctica

Einstein was never one for following others, he liked to tread his own paths. – Brian Clegg, Build Your Own Time Machine: The Real Science of Time Travel

“But I had family obligations, my family needed me at home.” – Harold Pinter, The Homecoming

My mother was still reading the letter, my father was still staring at her head. – William Trevor, ‘A Choice of Butlers’, in The Distant Past

You move to a house, your new room is built over the old garage. – Jonathon Green, Odd Job Man: Some Confessions of a Slang Lexicographer

The wind tore at him, the snow was certainly drifting up. – Annie Proulx, ‘The Half-Skinned Steer’, in Close Range

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