Theodore Sturgeon · 408 pages
Rating: (340 votes)
“No man can rob successfully over a period of years without pleasing the people he robs.”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
“The baby regarded Mike gravely as she discoursed to it about a poor drowned woofum-wuffums, and did the bad man treat it badly, then. The baby belched eloquently.
“He belches in English!” I remarked.
“Did it have the windy ripples?” cooed Mike. “Give us a kiss, honey lamb.”
The baby immediately flung its little arms around her neck and planted a whopper on her mouth.
“Wow!” said Mike when she got her breath. “Shorty, could you take lessons!”
“Lessons my eye,” I said jealously. “Mike, that’s no baby, that’s some old guy in his second childhood.”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
“His body was tubby but his arms apparently couldn’t understand that, for they were long and scrawny. From his brow to an inch below his eyes, his nose turned up; from there on, down. His short upper lip slanted sharply toward his tonsils, which had the effect of making his chinlessness positively jut.
(...)
The bartender was fascinated by the way the teardrops proceeded down Biddiver’s amazing nose. One drop would dash almost halfway, and then hesitate, daunted by the hump. Then it would be joined by another teardrop, and the two, merging, would surmount the obstacle and slip down to hang glittering over the disappearing lip until a sob came along to shake them off.”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
“Sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I just sets.”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
“Sometimes I sets and thinks, and sometimes I just sets.” The former is easy enough, and is what even an accomplished loafer has to go through before he reaches the latter and more blissful state. It takes years of practice to relax sufficiently to be able to “just set.” I’d learned it years ago. But”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
Theodore Sturgeon
Born place: in Staten Island, New York, The United States
Born date February 26, 1918
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“Maybe you don't go to hell for the things you do. Maybe you go to hell for the things you don't do. The things you don't finish.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, quote from Lullaby
“Well?”
“Well, what?” I waved a hand at the room.
“Start genuflecting. Let’s see some knee action.”
“You’re serious.” I lifted my brows.
He responded in kind, but finally nodded his head, then walked between the couches. He dropped to one knee, then held out his hands.
“I’m monumentally sorry for the pain and humiliation that I caused you and your—”
“Both knees.”
“Pardon?”
“I’d prefer to see both knees on the ground. I mean, if you’re going to grovel, be the best groveler you can, right?”
― Chloe Neill, quote from Some Girls Bite
“They loved fairy tales so much. If they ever got here and saw everything we've seen, I doubt they would have left.”
― Chris Colfer, quote from The Wishing Spell
“The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was allowed to fade off without anything's being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original wood color, and in some places faded or stained.
Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr. Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr. Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use something that would fit more easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr. Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then taken to the safe of Mr. Summers' coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves's barn and another year underfoot in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.”
― Shirley Jackson, quote from The Lottery and Other Stories
“He gestured toward her twisted leg. "Like you. Some don't walk good. Some be broken in other ways. Not all. But lots. Do you think it maken them quiet and nice, to be broken?”
― Lois Lowry, quote from Gathering Blue
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