Opening Paragraph Quotes

“I have walked by stalls in the market-place where books, dog-eared and faded from their purple, have burst with a white hosanna. I have seen people crowned with a double crown, holding in either hand the crook and flail, the power and the glory. I have understood how the scar be­comes a star, I have felt the flake of fire fall, miraculous and pentecostal. My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are grey faces that peer over my shoulder.”
― William Golding, Free Fall

“They found out about him in July and stayed angry all through August. They tried to kill him in September. It was way too soon. They weren't ready. The attempt was a failure. It could have been a disaster, but it was actually a miracle. Because nobody noticed.”
― Lee Child, Without Fail

“There were no milestones in the Copper Country. Often a traveler could only measure the progress of a journey by the time it took to get from each spoiled or broken thing to the next: a half-day’s walk from a dry well to the muzzle of a cannon poking out of a sand-slope, two hours to reach the skeletons of a man and a mule. The land was losing its battle with time. Ancient and exhausted, it visited decrepitude on everything within its bounds, as though out of spleen.”
― K.J. Bishop, The Etched City

“As they gently lowered it into the earth, all stared silently at the coffin but one: a young woman of twenty-five who glanced absentmindedly into the distance where an unknown figure stood – watching, waiting, his face buried in the shadow of his hat. Whether by intuition or paranoia she could not tell, but the presence of the man troubled her and her eyes were fixed on his motionless body and would not stir. Tourists rarely came to a town as small and uneventful as theirs, let alone to visit a funeral where they did not introduce themselves and only beheld the spectacle from afar.”
― Renate Linnenkoper, Exogenesis

“It was the sunlight coming through the window that woke Alex up; mother nature's own alarm clock rudely snapped him back to consciousness. The white light poured in so arrogantly that it was too much for his eyes to handle. Squinting did not seem enough to defend against it and the light slipped between his fingers when he held up his hand in an attempt to shield his eyes.”
― J.C. Henderson, Halfway To Nowhere

“To release the tension in her chest, Miray took a big breath of the warm midsummer air. After the morning thunderstorm, it was filled with the sweet aroma of cedar trees and the earthy scent of moss. This old forest was the only place where she could be herself, never rejecting her as people did. Its leafy arms were always open.”
― Elena Shelest, Enchanted Forests

“Growing up, her definition of peril was that of a dictionary definition - serious and immediate danger”
― Kaylie Fowler

“Carcass. Cut in half. Stunner. Slaughter line. Spray wash. These words appear in his head and strike him. Destroy him. But they’re not just words. They’re the blood, the dense smell, the automation, the absence of thought. They burst in on the night, catch him off guard. When he wakes, his body is covered in a film of sweat because he knows that what awaits is another day of slaughtering humans.”
― Agustina Bazterrica, Tender Is the Flesh

“Jaron stood on top of a hill, staring blankly into the distance and taking in every detail of the scene unfolding below him. To his back the sun was setting, casting its last rays over the field below and painting the sky around him in a vast array of red and gold. He shuddered slightly as a cool breeze blew gently through the tall grass of the field, nipping sharply at his cheeks which had gone numb from standing exposed to the elements for too long. It was a seemingly perfect fall day, and he couldn’t help but feel that it was somewhat ironic that it was on this day life as he knew it was coming to an end.”
― K. R. Fajardo

“My husband's disappeared. He got in from work, propped his briefcase against the wall and asked me if I'd bought any bread. It must have been around half past seven.”
― Marie Darrieussecq, My Phantom Husband

“About an hour outside of Chicago, as you drive north toward Wisconsin, there is a man sitting in the basement of an old farmhouse, wringing his pale, white hands. In fact, his entire nude body is covered in a white dust, a powder, a singular tear running down his right cheek. His overweight body hangs in folds over the edges of his frame, the tiny, brown stool straining under the weight. There is a singular light bulb overheard, and it is doing a poor job illuminating the cold concrete, but maybe that’s not such a bad thing. (Clown Face)”
― Richard Thomas, Spontaneous Human Combustion

“The family heard that the meteor shower would be visible from the cornfields of northern Illinois, just twenty minutes away from their sedentary suburban bliss, but Robert had been sleepless for weeks already, images flickering across his dreams—shadows and voices, a burning sensation running all the way to his core. They were mother and father, sister and brother—nothing special, rows of houses the same, but in blue, or yellow, or brick. But for the boy, half of a set of twins, all the magic and wonder rested in his cells—the darkness and vengeance in his sister, Rebecca. So as they snuffed out the lights of the family sedan, hand in hand down a dirt path the boy had mapped out, trust so easy to come by in this family—the girl sparked danger in her squinting eyes, as the boy’s ever widened to the stars, and possibility. Fresh cut grass lingered under buzzing power lines that disappeared as they stretched out to the horizon, a moist smell ripe with cleanliness and godliness—a hint of something sour underneath. The girl grinned as the rest held their noses, so eager she was to embrace death. (How Not to Come Undone)”
― Richard Thomas, Spontaneous Human Combustion

“[Opening Lines] It’s quiet here. But then again, it’s supposed to be quiet. Cemeteries, even those in the heart of a city, tend to be full of silence. The sounds of the neighborhood – barking dogs, laughing children, even the traffic on the adjacent streets – are swallowed up by the silence of the graveyard. The walls around the perimeter of the cemetery – imposing redbrick walls six feet high and adorned with a black iron fence – have something to do with it, I suppose. I’m a historian, not an acoustical engineer.”
― Alex Diaz-Granados, Reunion: A Story: A Novella