Answers
Sunday March 17, 2013
I put up a little quiz at the beginning of the month, and promised to put up some answers.
They came down to me whole, stories of a blizzard that took the measure of any man, that became the measure of all storms to come.
Judy Blunt in Breaking Clean telling of the December 14, 1964 blizzard that pretty much brought life to a standstill in Montana.
In the opening chapter, she tells of her sons, moving with her to Missoula from the farm where they were born: "The move was hardest on the boys, for here they were only boys. At the ranch, they were men in training, and they mourned this loss of passage."
... clinging to the damp underside of reality.
Travis McGee in The Quick Red Fox by John D. MacDonald. And yes, I have read all of the Travis McGee novels, multiple times. I can now admit to that since Lee Child and Stephen King claimed MacDonald influenced them.
She put on lipstick that formed a mouth not far from her own.
After she discovers the Gold Seam in Honorable Schoolboy, almost in celebration, Connie Sachs hauls herself into George Smiley's inner room, she had daubed a pair of rosy lips not far from her own. (So I missed the quote slightly, pulling it from memory.)
A runner up from this same novel also somes from Connie who had the affectation of assuming everything was alive and potentially recalcitrant.
The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time.
A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean. One of the great errors by the Pulitzer Prize Board, not nominating this masterpiece.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.
Salvor Hardin in Issac Asimov's Foundation. Taking a cue from his character, Issac adopted this saying himself.
I hear the dice being tossed, for her bloody dress. Many are the hands who dig her grave, tonight, and your as well.
From Count Zero by William Gibson, a disemmodied voice coming from Angie's lips. The quote continues "Many are the hands who dig her grave tonight, and yours as well. Enemies pray for your death, hired man. They pray until they sweat. Their prayers are a river of fever."
A sweet little heart-shaped face framing the nastiest pair of eyes you ever saw
Burning Chrome by William Gibson.
More tender nights like this. And days, too. All woven securely into this place where I belong.
The Place of Belonging by Jayne Pearson Falukner, who grew up in Great Falls and Conrad Montana and is the sister of one of my high-school classmates, Nancie Pearson Carmichael.
This is a delightful book and I highly recommend it.
I've watched through his eyes, I've listened through his ears, and I tell you he's the one. Or at least as close as we are going to get.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.