Short Story Quotes

Shimmel: “NEVER TRUST THE GOYIM. They are just like these other weird dangerous people, Messianic Jews! How dare Jews become “Christian-like”, Messianic? We should cherem (ban) them from every aspect of Jewish life. And we must strip them of every Jewish privilege!

A gossip spread a rumor, and became notorious from the deed. The gossip then started a fire beyond their control, and when it spread, the gossip spread the word around, but people just ran away. The gossip died in the fire they started, longing for warmth they could not find or keep when they did. And no one spread the word, about the gossips' death.

He stood just near the club’s steps, his back to me along the foggy English night, and it was not until I’d passed him and began my ascent of the many steps that I’d heard his voice. The voice I knew, in all my years of living upon the Earth, that I would never forget. Even then I had known this. It was the slippery way of his tongue, or perhaps it was the coolness of which his words passed across the air and slid its way into my ears as though they were only meant for me.

He paused, giving her a sweet smile of understanding. "You don't have to start with the crown jewels, you know. You could start with my lips then work your way down.

First contact comes not by hand of man, but by metal of machine.

Junk?” Gram gasped. “One man’s junk is another man’s treasure, you know.”“Yeah, well, maybe it’s time to let another man have it, you think?” he teased. ~ "The Mirror

If you think there is no time to write now, there would never be.

Lending my voice to a dedicated readership is a match made in heaven.

She’s the latest freshest fruit of our great American evolution. She’s the self-made girl!(…)Well, to begin with, the self-made girl’s a new feature. That, however, you know. In the second place she isn’t self-made at all. We all help to make her, we take such an interest in her.

Even if I had convict ancestry, I wouldn’t be ashamed of it. As far as I’m concerned, the real criminals back in those days weren’t twelve-year-old boys nicking a loaf of bread or a pair of socks to ward off hunger and blisters. No, it was those who exploited them; keeping the battler in the gutter while they sat around in their manors, sipping tea and admiring portraits of their toffee-nosed great grandfathers.

You sit beside the sorcerer, your love, and unzip your ribs. Tucked under your heart is a small oak box, plain and unvarnished. You offer it to the sorcerer. 'I brought this for you.

Everything is going as planned until I notice that Ashley has barely touched her wine glass or food after ordering the priciest bottle and several of the most expensive dishes on the menu.From "My Worst Valentine's Day.Ever: a Short Story

How talented was death. How many expressions and manipulations of hand, face, body, no two alike. They stood like the naked pipes of a vast derelict calliope, their mouths cut into frantic vents. And now the great hand of mania descended upon one hundred-throated, unending scream.

Summer sticks to her skirt sumptuously, in the shiny gray fabric hanging loosely from her curves. Her chestnut eyes, apparently hidden from strangers; her simple but graceful face, unpainted by Madison Avenue; and her straight black hair, parted down the middle without ego, all suggest a minimalist - almost pastoral - beauty that is oddly discordant with her fashionable attire, comfortable indifference to the crowds, and quasi-attentive perusal of the Time magazine unfolded over her hand.

Come closer to me,” he commanded. She began to get to her feet, giving him the opportunity to force her down again. “No. I want you to crawl over here on your hands and knees.” Jace watched the power of his words place invisible constraints on Camille’s body. She fell down to her knees and crawled on the floor like an animal. In that moment, he was her master; in that moment, everything seemed natural and right in the world. He was the yin to her yang, pulling both of them into perfect equilibrium.

If a story is only what it seems to be about, then somehow the author has failed.

You are the only thing I've ever needed. The only treasure that matters.- Seamus Tierney

I imagine I should have told it to you before? I love you, Sejal.I wish for you to become my wife.Recently I’ve also opened a shop in North Dakota and thinking that, just maybe, you love me too.

As the thing came closer, what was left of Nick’s body became revealed and I could see how the dead boy’s eyes had bled from the trauma inflicted upon him; they dripped with steady succession onto the floor between his splayed legs. He looked like a rejected marionette tossed haphazardly in the corner by a frustrated puppeteer, his head drooping so low that his chin rested against his chest. His motionless arms lay at his sides, both of them squeezed into tight fists, as if he’d died futilely trying to defend himself.

He had had no experience in asking for a job with a big organization, and Mr. Dilling was making him aware of what a fine art it was--if you couldn't run a machine. A duel was under way.

Alice is fictional. This isn't.

Diabetes is passed that way -- over and down, like a knight in chess.

I’m an old man, now. I’ve been alone since my 17th birthday. I’d wanted to marry, have a bunch of kids, and maybe be a grandpa. The big family around the Thanksgiving table, laughing and pouring wine and cracking jokes and harmlessly teasing the missus—I wanted that. I wanted to do something good with my life—something right. I didn’t want what happened to Danny, my best childhood friend, to be the only mark I’d ever make in this world. But I thought it best not to fancy such hopes and dreams: a family, love. I’d been cursed by my best friend, and I thought it right not to inflict that curse on anyone who’d be foolish enough to love me.

Most of the girls I've met since moving here have failed to ignite any modicum of enduring interest. Of course, I've dated; I'm seventeen years old and as horny as the next guy.

Inside the room there sat a rocker, which she sat on, and which had rocked her while she sipped the beer, because in spite of herself she had become so giddy to have so quickly relieved her heart that she allowed herself to lean backwards while in the rocker, which had made it possible for the rocker to rock her, although it was not her intention to be so rocked. Also there stood an ironing board with a still hot iron on it that was burning a yellow shift, and there was, among several items that were not as noticeable to the woman, and yet were noticeable enough to at least bear mention, a fake man."I hope you don't mind me asking," said the woman who lived in the room, but then while in her chair she nodded off.

The Scottish sun, shocked by having its usual cloudy underpinnings stripped away, shone feverishly, embarrassed by its nakedness.

It was 911 calling me. If you can believe it. Them calling me.

If you are a singer, you must sing. If you are a dancer, you must dance. If you are a writer, you must write. Don’t suffocate your heart.

Oh no. I'm not gonna let you leave yet. I'm gonna show you the value of takin' your time to get to work. I probably should have done this a long time ago.

Men circle like bees around honey, buzzing to communicate their sexual despair.

Shaw Centre has restaurants on the fourth floor, where the ACS boy can pull chairs out for her. Girls love this because no one else does it for them, especially not those sotong RI boys.

Gods, the love that saturated the room was so potent that Arabella couldn't breathe.This was what she wanted. Someone who wouldn't let go, someone who would love her so much he'd wait decades to be reunited with her.

Create a world in front of your readers where they can taste, smell, touch, hear, see, and move. Else they are likely going to move on to another book.

I’ve never been a believer in fate. I like to think I’m in control, that my life hasn’t been plotted out ahead of time. Sometimes all it takes is one wild thought, one brave decision to change everything. This must be one of those times.

Steve's throat swelled with tension as the intimacy of the moment became more tangible. He moved his eyes from the dark, reflective river, to the dark, reflective pupils in Diane's eyes. They seemed to quiver with tenderness - but then they would grow distant. He found himself continually surprised at the "aliveness" of the person standing just a foot away from him now. She wasn't inanimate: she would flinch if he pinched her, and answer if he asked her. And she was beautiful." -- From "The Grand Unified Story" -- a short story in Zack Love's Stories and Scripts: an Anthology

Cliches are the viruses that infect your writing with diseases.

He felt a little lost, after that experience. Lost as the girls on their knees. It was a never-ending story of young girls losing themselves, such that they were no longer humans with any souls or characters, but pretty girls with fat asses and nice tits.

Ah, what happiness it is to be with people who are all happy, to press hands, press cheeks, smile into eyes.

His cell-phone rang. Dominic fumbled for it on the nightstand next to the couch, the dim lights not helping his endeavour. He had piercing, generic, banal fluorescent lights on his face all the time at work and at University, it was so bad it made him loathe even natural sunlight. Lucky this apartment’s living room light had a dimmer. He flipped open his phone and said hello. ‘Hey Dom, how you doin’?’ a voice boomed. It was Ben. They proceeded to talk about the upcoming exams, which were deceptively close as it was week 10 at the moment. Yes, they would be alright. Yes, they would meet up afterwards. No, he hadn’t studied more than Ben had. As he clapped the phone closed after the genial conversation reached its natural nadir, he had forgotten most of what had been said

She stared at the faded tile floor before her feet, but knew his every step around her small kitchen. When Martin touched the coffee cup patterned curtains he must assume she’d made, her fingers throbbed. When his eyes slid across the flowery aluminum water bottle at the table, her throat cracked with thirst.The radio clicked off.The silence of the room soaked up her raspy breaths, her pounding heart, her ache, and stirred them around the one man she ever longed for in a way that changes how you taste the world.Her desire swirled in a pulsing, betraying, blurry hook, and encouraged him to move closer.Martin obeyed.

Fear is the short road to death and this world, Changed by the flux of decay: Survival is the exception for weary men.From the new book The Waning

And yet it was also true that the tumor could not be removed by our doctor, and as a result of that a strange medication had been given him that enabled my brother to become even more of an enigma than he was before, and as a result of that there came to exist not only the machine and the inertia that came with it, but a change of perspective among the townsfolk that was a result of their interactions with the various phases of my brother. And so it was that when the flood began to rear its terrible head, not only was there the inertia that we all had to deal with, but a sense of the sublime that we had begun to feel for the waters which had roared upon the horizon.

The mind is a thing capable of destroying itself when deep grief sets in, and when left alone to muse over one’s misery, the most irreparable damage can be done. You need people to heal.

But men are funny about their wars, they act as if they own them, and perhaps they do, for I don't think women ever start them.

It’s late and most of the clerks are at home in their beds, dreaming of swimming in pools filled with real money.