Grex Writing Conference

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Grex Writing Item 52: ... and five more
Entered by davel on Sat Jan 9 22:20:30 UTC 1993:
5 More miniquotes.

I thought it might be interesting to try something a little bit different.
These are all from works of fiction, and I suspect most of them are a bit
off the beaten track from the point of view of most Grexers.  Let's see
how long it takes anyone to pin them down.  I'm cutting out a names that
would give the game away in some cases, but I've tried to pick passages
that are indicative of the authors' styles.

1. What I wanted to do so bad I could taste it was call the number -----
   had given me, but that had been for emergency only.  I looked emergency
   up in the dictionary, and got "an unforeseen combination of circumstances
   which calls for immediate action."  Since this was just the opposite,
   a foreseen combination of circumstances which called for getting a good
   night's sleep, I didn't dial the number.  I did get the good night's
   sleep.

2.   "You remind me of a charming old tutor, now dead, whose particular
   subject of research was the relations of the Papacy to the Church in
   England between certain dates which I do not precisely recall.  At one
   time, a special subject on these lines was set for the History School,
   and undergraduates taking that subject were naturally sent to the old
   boy for coaching and did very well.  But it was noticed that no man
   from his own college ever entered for that particular special--the
   reason being that the tutor's honesty was such that he would earnestly
   dissuade his pupils from taking his own subject lest his encouragement
   might influence their decision."

3.    ------ ------- said, "Yeah," and looked again around the room.  It
   was cluttered with canvases with paint on them.  They were stacked
   against the walls haphazardly.  They were in grooved racks.  They were
   on easels scattered around the enormous room.  The easel nearest the
   chalked outline which showed where a man had fallen and where he had
   died had a sheet of drawing paper tacked to it, and there were black
   marks on the paper's whiteness.  Vaguely, distortedly, the marks seemed
   to add up to the sketch of a woman.  A very peculiar looking woman,
   certainly.  All height; no width.  Perhaps not a woman at all; perhaps
   a plucked ostrich.  ------- shook his head with no hope that shaking
   would clear it.  It was entirely beyond him and he had every
   expectation that it would remain there.

4.    _Eso si esta' bueno_, thought ------- irritably.  What a setup!  It
   got more and more complicated--and no leads at all!  _Was_ Barney right?
   It seemed too big a coincidence if he wasn't.  Had that Martian monster
   been the convenient means of hoisting the body over the fence?  Grant
   that X knew how to operate it, of course, a very easy means.

5.    Andrew Faulks, in the normal course of events, weathered the slingshots
   and arrows of outrageous playmates and grew up to be a man.
      As men will, he fixed his heart and eyes on a girl and eventually
   married her.  As women will, she gave birth in due course to a boy,
   Andy Jr, and later a girl, Alexandria.
      He became a bank clerk, and went to and from home on an immutable
   schedule.  He got an occasional raise; he was bawled out at times by
   the head teller; he became a company man, a white-collar worker, and
   developed all the political ills that white-collared flesh is heir to.
      And he dreamed.  Literally.
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