Title: Too Much Cash And Em Dashes
Week 1/3
Day: 2/15
Standard
I can statement
Checking for Understanding
Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
a. I can organize an essay of complex ideas where each new element builds on the information that comes before.
Free Write: Sarcastically congratulate a rookie by filling in the blank to “Congrats, newly minted ________,” and giving them ineffective advice. Think of at least 10 essentials on how to get started. Use the text we read in class as an example.
Revision: Add an em dash to your writing. Highlight it so I know how where you included it in your writing.
Lesson
Silent Reading
Students will read the book they chose from the media center yesterday for 20 minutes.
Mini-Conferences
While students are reading, I will call students over to my desk and go over their goal from the Google Form they filled out yesterday. I will also ask about the book they chose and why they chose it.
Mentor Text
We will read “Weighed Down by Too Much Cash?” by Rick Reilly. We will discuss their thoughts on the article (See Appendix D).
Free Write
Students will respond to the following prompt: Sarcastically congratulate a rookie by filling in the blank to “Congrats, newly minted ________,” and giving them ineffective advice. Think of at least 10 essentials on how to get started. Use the text we read in class as an example. Students will be given time to share with their peers and as a class.
Tea Party
Students will get a strip of paper that shows different ways in which authors used em dashes. They will take their mentor text strips of papers and walk around the room sharing their paper with a peer. Students will take turns sharing how the author used the em dash. Then they will trade slips of papers and continue sharing with peers (See Appendix E).
Revision
Add an em dash to your writing. Highlight it so I know how where you included it in your writing. After revising, students will share their revisions with a peer, and I will ask for one or two volunteers to share with the class by writing their before and after sentences on the board. If the em dash is used incorrectly, we will revise it together.
CONGRATS, NEWLY MINTED NBA ROOKIE!
Now you've been drafted. Next comes the delicious multimillion-dollar contract. And that's when you must do what most NBA players do: start going through cash like Jack Black through the Keebler factory.
Filing for bankruptcy is a long-standing tradition for NBA players, 60% of whom, according to the Toronto Star, are broke five years after they retire. The other 40% deliver the Toronto Star.
It's not just NBA players who have the fiscal sense of the Taco Bell Chihuahua. All kinds of athletes wind up with nothing but lint in their pockets. And if everyone from Johnny Unitas to Sheryl Swoopes to Lawrence Taylor can do it, so can you! With my How to Go Bankrupt* DVD series, it's a layup to go belly-up!
Ten essentials, just to get you started:
1. Screw up, deny it, then fight by using every lawyer and dime you have. Roger Clemens just sold his Bentley, reportedly to pay legal bills. Marion Jones lawyered herself broke before she finally copped and went to prison. Paging Mr. Bonds, Mr. Barry Bonds.
2. Buy a house the size of Delaware. Evander Holyfield was in danger of losing his 54,000-square-foot pad outside Atlanta, and it's a shame. He had almost visited all 109 rooms!
3. Buy many, many cars. Baseball slugger Jack Clark had 18 cars and owed money on 17 when he went broke. And don't get just boring Porsches and Mercedes. Go for Maybachs. They sell for as much as $375,000-even though they look like Chrysler 300s-and nobody will ever know how to pronounce them, much less fix them.
4. Buy a jet. They burn money like the Pentagon. Do you realize it costs $50,000 just to fix the windshield on one? Scottie Pippen borrowed $4,375 million to buy some wings and spent God knows how much more for insurance, pilots and fuel. Finally, his wallet cried uncle. The courts say he still owes $5 million, including interest. See you in coach, Scottie!
(For that matter, why not a yacht? Latrell Sprewell kept his 70-foot Italian-made yacht tied up in storage until the bank repossessed it, in August 2007. He probably sat at home and cried about that-until the bank foreclosed on his house, this past May.)
5. Spend stupid money on other really stupid stuff. In going from $300 million up to $27 million down, Mike Tyson once spent $9,180 in two months to care for his white tiger. That's why Iron Mike's picture is on our logo!
6. Hire an agent who sniffs a lot and/or is constantly checking the scores on his BlackBerry. Those are the kinds of guys who will suck up your dough like a street-sweeper. Ex-Knick Mark Jackson once had a business manager he thought he could trust. Turned out the guy was forging Jackson's signature on checks-an estimated $2.6 million worth- to feed a gambling jones. "And it wasn't like I was a rookie-I was a veteran," Jackson says. The only reason he says he's getting some money back is because he didn't ...
7. Sign over power of attorney. What's it mean? Who cares? Just sign! The guy you're signing it over to knows. And while you play Xbox, he'll be buying large portions of Switzerland for himself. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar let an agent named Tom Collins have power of attorney once, and it cost Kareem $9 million before he figured it out.
8. Spend like the checks will never stop. Also known as the Darren McCarty method. Despite earning $2.1 million a year, Red Wing McCarty, who started a rock band called Grinder, went splat by investing in everything but fur socks ($490,000 in unlikely-to-be-repaid loans) and gambling large ($185,000 in casino markers). In other words, a Tuesday for John Daly.
9. Just ball. Don't write your own checks. Don't drive your own car. Don't raise your own kids. Just be a tall slab of skilled meat for others to feast on. Not to worry. It'll be over before you know it.
10. Most of all, set up a huge support system around you. It'll be years before you'll realize they call it a support system because you're the only one supporting it. They're all on full-ride scholarships at the University of You. "Guys go broke because they surround themselves with people who help them go broke," says ex-NBA center Danny Schayes, who now runs No Limits Investing in Phoenix. "I know all-time NBA, top-50 guys who sold their trophies to recover."
See, kid? You can be a top-50 guy! So order my How to Go Bankrupt series now, and get this empty refrigerator box to sleep in, absolutely free!
Teacher Notes
How to use this: Students will get a strip of paper that shows different ways in which authors used em dashes. They will take their mentor text strips of papers and walk around the room sharing their paper with a peer. Students will take turns sharing how the author used the em dash. Then they will trade slips of papers and continue sharing until 8 minutes have passed. Copy, paste, print, cut, pass out to students
Revision in Journal Entry:
“I want you to add em dashes to your writing. Remember when you interrupt, it has to be related to the topic you’re writing about. For example, if your journal says “I started talking to Sarah--who looks splendid today--about a dob.” You’re just making an extra comment.
After students finish their edit, have them share.
“ ‘Professor,’ Harry gasped. ‘Your bird—I couldn’t do anything—he just caught fire—‘”
(Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets J.K. Rowling pg 207)
"Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun—last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon's old socks."
(Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone J.K. Rowling)
"Also"—his smile turns apologetic—"I said you are a very special guest who should be given every courtesy."
(Rae Carson, Girl of Fire and Thorns, pg 52)
Condesa Arina's face flutters in the canopy above me—the coral of her gently flushed cheeks, the softness of her skin.
(Rae Carson, Girl of Fire and Thorns, pg 80)
"Will they—
"They're better suited to the desert than we are," Cosme says.
(Rae Carson, Girl of Fire and Thorns, pg 163)
Mog was still Skotos' second in command, but the other three lodge-house members—Fracas, Gourdo and Bob (short, of course, not for Robert for for Bobalogogtwit)—had been promised new titles if they could convince their cousins to join the Great Troll Revenge Expedition." (Voyage of the Basset, James C. Christensen)
I'm given two beeswax candles—precious commodities, Father Alentin tells me—and a squat box of an adobe hut.
(Rae Carson, Girl of Fire and Thorns, pg 178)
"We cannot defeat Invierne; therefore we should not try. This does not mean"—I hold up my hand to forestall the grumbling disagreement—"that we will not fight. I believe we can and we should."
(Rae Carson, Girl of Fire and Thorns, pg 205)
I felt like a person all along—the same person that I am today.
(Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game)
Ms. Madden was such an excellent secretary—one who could spell, punctuate, and type—that Mr. Schultz put up with his share of coffee-making.
(Beverly Cleary, Muggie Maggie)
But Philip—it was the presence of Philip himself that was hardest to bear.
(Beverly Cleary, The Luckiest Girl)
She had just been trying to do something she had already tried to do ten times in those three days: to choose some of her own and the children’s things to take to her mother’s—and again she could not make up her mind to do it; but now, as each time before, she told herself that things could not remain like this, that she had to do something, to punish, to shame him, to take her revenge on him for at least a small part of the hurt he had done her.
(Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina)
Ramona's heart was pounding in her ears as she stopped to reach for the only weapon left—her shoe.
(Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Brave)
Once upon a time—of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve—old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.
(Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol)
He gave all he had for them and his people—life, fame, case, wealth and possessions, and counted not the cost.
(Terry Breverton, Owain Glyndwr: The Story of the Last Prince of Wales)
I took dinner usually at the Yale Club—for some reason it was the gloomiest event of my day—and then I went upstairs to the library and studied investments and securities for a conscientious hour.
(F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby)
Ramona refused to cry—she was brave, wasn't she?—but she was worried.
(Beverly Cleary, Ramona the Brave)
The great black forest—stern as it showed itself to those who brought the guilt and troubles of the world into its bosom—became the playmate of the lonely infant, as well as it knew how.
(Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter)
Copper Lincoln cents—pale zinc-coated steel for a year in the war—figure in my earliest impressions of money.
(John Updike, "A Sense of Change")
I also took great pleasure in knowing the formal scientific names of plants and animals—it was a kind of secret knowledge that I had and most people didn't.
(Greg Graffin, Anarchy Evolution)
I was coming home from kindergarten—well, they told me it was kindergarten. I found out later I had been working in a factory for ten years.
(Ellen DeGeneres)
I sensed something cold and unpleasant—the presence of evil.
(Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters pg. 122)
Bastille turned—an action that made me rather uncomfortable, as I thought she should have kept watching the road—and gave me the kind of look that implied that I had just said something very, very stupid.
(Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians p.73)
You may find it hard to believe—considering the number of things I'd broken in my life—but this was the first time someone had actually tried to shoot me.
(Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Versus the Evil Librarians, p. 30)
I'd like to take this opportunity to point out something important. Should a strange old man of questionable sanity show up at your door—suggesting that he is your grandfather and that you should accompany him upon some quest of mystical import—you should flatly refuse him.
(Brandon Sanderson, Alcatraz Verus the Evil Librarians, p.26)
The nose was clearcut and the mouth firm and settled—a face, one might think, that knew itself and had a decided way of taking in the world
(A.S. Byatt, Possession)
She was not exactly beautiful—her face was too long for perfection, and not in the first flush of youth, though the bones were well-cut and the mouth and elegant curve, no puting rosebud.
(A.S. Byatt, Possession)
How perfectly—excuse me—how vulgar!
(W.D. Howells)
I lie here on this great immovable bed—it is nailed down, I believe—and follow that pattern about by the hour.
(Charlotte Gilman, The Yellow Wallpaper)
I hear Dad turn on the television. Clink, clink, clink--he drops ice cubes in a heavy-bottomed glass and pours in some booze. He opens the microwave—for the pizza, I guess—slams it closed, then beeps-beeps the timer.
(Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak, p. 16)
Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what—what is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma'am, curled—curled all over? And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.
(Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre, p. 63
"I was reminded of Jack London's books—you know, where the wolf pack waits in silence for one of two members to go down in a fight."
(S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders)
My uncle answered the question. "He is Juan—"
"Ay."
"And he has strong Luna blood—"
"Ave Maria Purisma,"
(Rudolfo Anaya, Bless Me, Ultima, p.93)
Then the drunk started yelling: "I'm—waiting—or—Vizzini—"
"Meanie."
"I'm—not—mean, I'm—just—following—the—
rule—"
"Cruel."
"Not—cruel, not—mean; can't you understand I'm..." and here his voice trailed off for a moment as he squinted. Then, quietly, he said, "Fezzik?"
From behind the noisy one, the quiet one said, "Who says—ik?"
(William Goldman, The Princess Bride, p. 268)
But do me a favor, yeah? Next time, come down South Street so those centipede boys don't bother you. Coral street—where you came down? They think they own it.
(Graham Salisbury, Under the Blood Red Sun, p. 97)
I brought Naomi's mirror.
I didn't pack it. It didn't come in a carton, wrapped in old newspapers, traveling baggage class. I carried it in my arms—tall and fragile like a beautiful invalid—up the gangplank, into our special third-class stateroom, all the way across the Pacific.
(Lynda Minatoya, The Strangeness of Beauty, p. 122)
Gold, silver, and copper coins jingled over the flagstone floor, clinging as they gathered in heaps under the benches—more and more and more of them.
(Cornelia Funk, Inkheart, p. 176)
There was another rabbit waiting and he was under special guard—Owlsafa, they call him: the Council police. I've never been near anyone so frightened in my life—I thought he'd go mad with fear.
(Richard Adams, Watership Down, p.242)
Haven't you heard about Elizabeth Ramsel—found dead in the ravine?
(Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine, p.164)
I hugged my pillow until my arms hurt—as if the pillow were an anchor against following orders.
(Gail Carson Levine, Ella Enchanted, p. 17)
Suddenly Rosalie, his blond, breathtaking sister, turned to look at me. No, not to look—to glare, with dark, cold eyes.
(Stephanie Myer, Twilight, p. 245)
The trouble is, who could ever replace me? Who could step in while I take a break in your stock-standard resort-style vacation destination, whether it be tropical or the ski trip variety? The answer, of course, is nobody, which has prompted me to make a conscious, deliberate decision—to make distraction my vacation.
(Markus Zusak, The Book Thief, p. 5)
She wouldn't ask Dede any questions—Mama always said that what went on in her daughters' marriages was their business.
(Julia Alvarez, In the Time of the Butterflies, p. 190)
Ha! ha! ha!—he! he!—a very good joke indeed—an excellent jest. We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo—he! he! he!—over our wine—he! he!
(Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado")
Whenever he tries to say something to me at meal time—he never even tries to talk to he—she always shuts him up
(C.S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew).
I conjure you, by our mutual happiness, with simple truth-—do you not love another?
(Mary Shelley, Frankenstein)
The little man—if man he was, which Tristran found rather unlikely—sighed mournfully and reached into the pan sizzling on the fire, with his knife, and flicked two larde mushrooms into Tristran’s tin bowl.
(Neil Gaiman, Stardust)
I chose the sloth because its demeanor—calm, quiet and introspective—did something to soothe my shattered self.
(Yann Martel, Life of Pi)
“Certainly, the air with which you speak comes from your own lungs, but—“.
(Frank Herbert, Dune)
“Here is the Water of Life, the water that is greater than water—Kan, the water that frees the soul.”
(Frank Herbert, Dune)
“And Jessica stared back, still holding the spout in her mouth. She tasted the sack’s contents in her nostrils, in the roof of her mouth, in her cheeks, in her eyes—a biting sweetness, now.”
(Frank Herbert, Dune)
“Jessica studied Chani’s face—elfin features—seeing the traces of Liet-Kynes there as yet unfixed by time.”
(Frank Herbert, Dune)
“The cavern remained around her—the people.”
(Frank Herbert, Dune)
A mirage? I stay the course—step, swishstep, step, swishstep—and drag myself to the shimmering edge of the oasis.
(Pete Hautman, Godless pg. 67)
We walked—we floated—around the block to burn off our excess energy.
(Jerry Spinelli, Stargirl)
I chose the sloth because its demeanor—calm, quiet, and introspective— did something to soothe my shattered self.
(Yann Martel, The Life of Pi)
Resume your sea, little sister—I want you to stay fresh and pretty—for gentlemen callers!
(Tennessee Williams, The Glass Menagerie)
Before you go—I can see you're getting ready to dash—dear, dear Fiyero—what do you hear from Elphaba?
(Gregory Maguire, Wicked)
Because he felt an exulant desire to laugh—as he had laughed at the news of Wyatt's fire, as he had laughed at the crash of d'Anconia Cooper—and knew that if he did, the thing he feared would hold him, would not release him this time, and he would never see his mills again-- Rearden drew back and, for a moment, kept his lips closed tight to utter no sound.
(Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged)
“I love writing stories and poems—just give me something to write and I will love it” (Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees)
"The air was dank and musty—like the smell of wet blankets—and the massive stone walls were slimy to the touch."
(Norton Juster, The Phantom Toolbooth)
"I make myself eat the stew in tiny spoonfuls—they even sent us silverware and plates—savoring each bite." (303)
(Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games)
"I start hurling myself against the glass, shrieking and I think I just catch a glimpse of pink hair—it must be Effie, it has to be Effie coming to my rescue
I know something of what the Hillfolk do, or are—and even if we could stop whatever it is we do, and I can’t because I usually don’t know what I’m doing in the first place—I know what too that, whatever it is, it will ride with those that we will be facing. (211) (The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley)
Not very—silly, I mean. (218) (The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley)
I don’t like my dreams—and I…suspect that I am supposed to pay attention to some of my dreams. (218) (The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley)
Sungold bucked and bounced till even Harry had to clutch at his mane to stay on—Jack had the temerity to laugh—and behaved not at all like a well-schooled war-horse, and seemed just as happy as she. (264) (The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley)
No—we who love the Hills must stick together. (268) (The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley)
"As the parents organized the Whittier crew for the group victory pictures—'All hail to thee!"—Henry looked over at the Merton team—who had no team jackets, no sweats--and he watched Disappointment cloak them."
(Gary Schmidt, Trouble)
"I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be."
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet)
"Come at once if convenient—if inconvenient come all the same."
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Creeping Man)
"It was cold as Iceland--no fire at all--the landlord said he couldn't afford it."
(Herman Melville, Moby Dick)
___________________________________________________________________________________
“I’ll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may become jolly good bedfellows after all—there’s no telling.”
(Herman Melville, Moby Dick)
____________________________________________________________________________________
“It is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally beloved—which gives Isabella all her popularity—I have it not—but I know how to prize and respect it.” (Jane Austen, Emma)
I found a little girl's dress—it's out there in my car.
(Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)
Something moved on the grounds down beneath my window—cast a long spider of a shadow out across the grass as it ran out of sight behind a hedge.
(Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
When my mother insisted she move in with us, her doctor visits increased but the rest of her world began shrinking—first to the house, then to her room, and finally to her bed.
(Paul Fleischman, Whirligig)
Then another look at the bonding in the row below—there might be a damaged block, where a bit crumbled away, and if there was, you slapped on more mortar, thicker under the left end, and didn’t just lay the block but slid it on from right to left so it squeezed out the extra mortar between itself and the block on the left.
(Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich)
"But if I had seen you, before I heard your voices—I liked them: nice little voices; they reminded me of something I cannot remember—if I had seen you before I hear you, I should have just trodden on you, taking you for little Orcs, and found out my mistake afterwards.”
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers)
"Frozen air filled the room as Harry ducked to avoid another shower of broken glass and his food slipped on a pencil-like something—his wand—"
(J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)
"No one is fool enough to choose war instead of peace—in peace sons bury fathers, but in war fathers bury sons."
(Herodotus, The Histories)
"She has the features of dear Connie, but they are sculpted somehow—higher cheekbones, stronger chin."
(Toni Morrison, Paradise)
“A boy—a boy I knew—had been kidnapped and murdered.”
(Mississippi Trial, 1955, Crowe)
"She was a strength to me, right up to the delivery of the news by the Department of the Navy that my father—his remains—and his personal effects had been found." (James Michael Pratt, The Last Valentine)
We peeked inside and saw rows of children—maybe two dozen in all, about six to ten years old—sitting cross-legged on cushions.
(Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid)
The mother of our particular hobbit—what is a hobbit?
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit)
They won’t be frightened of him—(‘What about me of them?’ thought Bilbo)—and anyway I hope they won’t do anything nasty to him.
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit)
Then Smaug really did laugh—a devastating sound which shook Bilbo to the floor, while far up in the tunnel the dwarves huddled together and imagined that the hobbit had come to a sudden and nasty end.
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit)
“Good old Bilbo—Bilbo—Bilbo—bo—bo—bo—” And then he fell asleep, and there was complete silence for a long while.
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit)
The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats—the hobbit was fond of visitors.
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit)
She looked at him and smiled, amazed at the smallness of the man before her. She may have only been a peasant girl, but he—he was a worm.
(Will Allen, Swords for Hire pg 112)
Their fingers, their bows, their breath—the instruments themselves, it seemed--had all be taken over by the spirit of that wild, anarchic music.
(Kate Thompson, The New Policeman)
"When I was three and Bailey four, we had arrived in the musty little town, wearing tags on our wrists which instructed—'To Whom It May Concern'—that we were Marguerite and Bailey Johnson Jr., from Long Beach, California, en route to Stamps, Arkansas, c/o Mrs. Annie Henderson."
(Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
She had been a baby when they left, so she had no memories of it—good or bad.
(Tim Wynne-Jones, A Thief in the House of Memory)
I'm just like them—an ordinary drone dressed in secrets and lies.
(Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak)
She was torn between the obvious urge to see him—to know that he was still alive-- and an absence that could mean any number of things, one of which being freedom.
(Markus Zusak, The Book Thief)
But of that—of that he had no recollections, and yet every minute he felt that he had forgotten something that he ought to remember.
(Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment)
There's an image I've heard people in recovery use—that getting all of one's addiction under control is a little like putting an octopus to bed.
(Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird)
But there was something far more important about him than the fact that he was old—something calm and solid and powerful.
(Natalie Babbitt, The Moon Over High Street)
His voice was deep, but he talked funny, like a much younger kid—I guess because he'd never gone to school before coming to Meriwether.
(Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters)
Normally I would've been okay with just Tyson—he was worth half a team all by himself—but the visitors on Sloan's team were almost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson and there were six of them.
(Rick Riordan, The Sea of Monsters)
"The lines turned out to be a hundred dull ones, as Aeneas—Turner thought he finally had the spelling down-moped about and looked for a place to live."
(Gary Schmidt, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminister Boy)
The wanting never subsided until something—a quarrel, a visit—took her attention away.
(Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping)
"Suddenly, Jim saw a flash—the glitter of light on metal where there shouldn't have been any."
(Tim Wynne-Jones, The Boy in the Burning House)
"A few dogs gave chase to the truck and in front of one house two small girls played, but for the most part the village was quiet—the men were in the fields working."
(Rudolfo Anaya, Bless me Ultima)
I used to think it didn't matter—that everyone in this world had the same chance, the same fight. Imagine two babies born—one white, one black.
(Jacqueline Woodson, If You Come Softly)
He may have lost the neighbors' respect, but he gained—well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.
(J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit)
The author’s decision to describe the process is a questionable one — a book’s great unknown can leave the strongest impression on a reader — but he executes as precisely as the surgeons who perform the unwinding.
(Vizzini, Ned. "Young and in the Way" The New York Times. The New York Times Company, 16 Mar. 2008. Web. 4 Apr. 10.)
She was a horse woman—which is supposed to be bad luck if you're born female—but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don't like their women strong.
(Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street)
“It was a body capable of enormous leverage—a cruel body” (F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, pg. 7).
“Now and then he saw horses—he knew them from picture books—walking between the rows of white flowers” (Nancy Farmer’s The House of the Scorpion 6).
You're a smart kid—I don't care what other people say about you!...I'm kidding, nobody says you're not smart. They say other stuff, but not that." (Justin Halpern, Sh*t My Dad Says)
"'First Charles Cheswick and now William Bibbit! I hope you're finally satisfied. Playing with human lives- gambling with human lives—as if you thought yourself to be a God!'" (Ken Kesey, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest)
There is no ultimate definition—no finish line to cross, no final conclusion to be reached. It's the way I feel about dancing—you move around a lot, not to get somewhere, but to be somewhere in time.
(Robert Fulghum, UH-OH)
Dashes: We left early—Becky told everyone that a good athlete needs his rest—and drove the pickup back to the meadow. (Chris Crutcher, Running Loosepg. 46)
"It was odd—although I could easily see the tops of my feet on the river's bed, there were no stones in sight." (Alan Bradley, A Red Herring Without Mustard)
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The woman I was staying with—I called her the lemon lady because of the way her mouth caved in—made me stay in the yard all weekend for that.
(Patricia Reilly Giff, Pictures of Hollis Wood)
He looks out at the water to where they're building the Bay Bridge—two toothpicks held together by a thread of steel.
(Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts)
I try to forget all of this—try to stop the churning in my mind—but as soon as I do, Natalie mutters "105" and I'm back into it again.
(Gennifer Choldenko, Al Capone Does My Shirts)
He sought warmth and company in the bustling Bartleby mausoleum, but the Bartleby family—seven generations of them—had no time for him that night.
(Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book)
Well, firstly, I think you're old enough now—what are you, ten years old?—and normal, living people's clothes are wise.
(Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book)
Bod wondered if he could hear it better because he was wearing the flower—he could make out a beat, like distant drums, and a skirling, hesitant melody that made him want to pick up his heels and march in time to the sound.
(Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book)
“Though Lily thought that she herself was too quiet and too boring to ever do anything interesting, she believed that if she just was watchful enough and silent enough—so silent that no one could even tell she existed—she would eventually see marvels” M.T. Anderson Whales on Stilts 2
"She thought it would be nice to know what her father did—that way she could understand a little bit more of what her father and mother talked about at dinner—but she certainly didn't suspect that the visit to her dad's work would eventually lead to daring escapes, desperate schemes, brilliant disguises, and goons with handguns."
(M.T. Anderson, Whales on Stilts, 3)
And after luncheon we went to the theatre—it was dazzling, marvellous, unbelievable— I dream about it every night."
(Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs, 35)
I imagine that I was a silent and solemn child—as solemn as my mother was smiling and gay.
(M.T. Anderson, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation, 7)
We're sophisticated—cool to the point of not feeling anything.
(S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders)
"Ponyboy"—Johnny was shaking me—"Hey, Pony, wake up."
(S.E. Hinton, The Outsiders)
"When the thoughts came hard—Jesse Jr. crying in my arms, the too-long, wet cuffs on my daddy's pants, Mama and M'lady—I wrote."
(Jacqueline Woodson, Beneath a Meth Moon)
"I'd really rather you didn't. I mean, the earth's my home, and I'd rather be there than anywhere in the world—I mean, the universe—and I can't wait to get back, but we make some awful bloopers there."
(Madeleine L'Engle, A Wrinkle in Time, pg. 177)