Short
sentences
Remember that two great masters of
language, William Shakespeare and James
Joyce, wrote sentences which were almost
childlike when their subjects were most
profound. “To be or not to be?” asks
Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The longest word is
three letters long. Joyce, when he was frisky,
could put together a sentence as intricate and
as glittering as a necklace for Cleopatra, but
my favorite sentence in his short story
“Eveline” is this one: “She was tired.” At that
point in the story, no other words could break
the heart of a reader as those three words do.
Simplicity of language is not only reputable,
but perhaps even sacred. The Bible opens
with a sentence well within the writing skills
of a lively fourteen-year-old: “In the beginning
God created the heaven and the earth.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
It was a pleasure to burn.
-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Earlier that night a man’s brains had been
blownout.
-- Patrick Quinlan, Slow Burn
Charlotte knew the time had come to tell her boss how she
really felt, to let him know that she wouldn’t take it a
second longer. She slammed open her door and marched
down the hall, past the unbelieving faces of the secretaries,
and right into her boss’ office. She looked into his eyes,
summoned all of her courage, and took a deep breath.
She couldn’t speak.
It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my
life I had been looking for something, and
everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it
was. I accepted their answers too, though they were
often in contradiction and even self-contradictory.
I was naïve.
-- Ralph Ellison, “Battle Royal”
My marriage had just fallen apart. I couldn’t find a job. I had
another girl. But she wasn’t in town. So I was at a bar having a
class of beer, and two women were sitting a few stools down,
and one of them began to talk to me.
“You have a car?”
“I do, but it’s not here,” I said.
My wife had the car. I was staying at my parents’ place.
I used their car sometimes. But tonight I was walking.
-- Raymond Carver, “Night School”
He turned the corner and sprinted down the alley. They were
getting closer, fifty feet behind him. He kicked at the door. it
wasn’t giving. He put his shoulder to it. It gave with a groan
and he stumbled inside. Stairs went up and down. He could
hear them coming. He had to choose.
Sheppard kept his intense blue eyes fixed on him. The boy’s
future was written in his face. He would be a banker. No,
worse. He would operate a small loan company.
-- Flannery O’Connor, “The Lame Shall Enter First”
Maman died today. Or yesterday maybe, I don’t know. I got a
telegram from the home: “Mother deceased. Funeral
tomorrow. Faithfully yours.” That doesn’t mean anything.
Maybe it was yesterday.
-- Albert Camus, The Stranger
No answering machines. And no call waiting. No Caller I.D.
No compact disc recorders or laser discs or holography or
cable television or MTV. No multiplex cinemas or word
processors or laser printers or modems. No virtual reality.
-- Rick Moody, The Ice Storm
He did not want any consequences. He did not want any
consequences ever again. He wanted to live along without any
consequences. Because he did not really need a girl. The army
had taught him that. it was all right to pose as though you had
to have a girl. Nearly everybody did that. but it wasn’t true.
You did not need a girl. That was the funny thing.
-- Ernest Hemingway, “Soldier’s Home”
For sale: baby shoes, never used.
-- Ernest Hemingway
He noticed. He stared. She noticed. She smiled. He approached. She rebuffed. He offered. She
accepted. He said, she said, he said, she said. They drank. They said. They drank. He touched.
She laughed. They danced. He pressed. She kissed. They left. They did. He left. She slept.
He called. He called. He called. He begged. She refused. He called. He wrote. He
visited. He called, called, called, called. She reported. He arrived, shouted, vowed, departed.
He plotted. He waited. He visited. She gasped. He demanded. She refused. He grabbed. She
screamed. He slapped. She ran, locked, called, waited. He panicked. He fled, hid, failed.
She accused. He denied. She described. He denied. She won, he lost. They aged.
She wed, reproduced, parented, saddened, divorced. He bided, waited, hardened. Fought.
Smoked. Plotted, planned. Escaped. Vanished.
They lived. She thrived, he faded. He wandered; she traveled. They encountered.
He sat, she sat, they ignored. He noticed. She noticed. He gaped. She jumped. She
warned, he assured. She reminded, he admitted. She threatened, he promised. She
considered. She sat. She asked. He told. He asked. She told. He smoked. She smoked. He
apologized. She cried. He explained. He begged. He pleaded. She considered, resolved,
refused. He stood. He clenched. He perspired. He spat. She flinched, paled.
He stopped. He slumped. He collapsed. She stood. She pitied. She left.
They lived. They forgot. They died.
-- J. Robert Lennon, March 28, 2002, 9:05 - 9:25 a.m., Ithaca, New York
He opened
He opened. He dressed. He stood. He stared. He smiled. He giggled.
She opened. She saw. She screamed. She ran. She told. She cried. They disowned.
He moved. He lived. He cried, lived, failed. He smoked, he smoked, he smoked. He
paced, pined; he worked. He continued, he failed. He frowned, he cried.
He desired. He pined. He stared. He crossed. He opened, he dressed. He smiled. He
giggled. He laughed. He danced.
He visited. He waited. He told, he listened. He comprehended. He decided. He left.
He walked, walked, walked.
He visited. He operated. He recovered. He became she. She lived.
-- Anna Gonick, 16