Schist Quotes

“Pilgrims, digging in shifts, dig till midnight in mining pits, chipping flint with picks, drilling schist with drills, striking it rich mining zinc. Irish firms, hiring micks whilst firing Brits, bring in smiths with mining skills: kilnwrights grilling brick in brickkilns, millwrights grinding grist in gristmills. Irish tinsmiths, fiddling with widgits, fix this rig, driving its drills which spin whirring drillbits.”
― Christian Bök, Eunoia

“Schist! How did it get so late?”

Jaya laughed. “Schist?” she said. “Is that another of your family expressions?”

I nodded. “It was on our science vocabulary list last year. It’s a kind of rock. It’s what happens to hot sandstone when it gets squished really hard for a few million years.”

“I know,” said Jaya. “But I’ve never heard anybody use it as a curse before. It sounds really bad—in a good way.”

“Yeah, it’s one of my favorites. Even strict teachers can’t object to a word from a vocabulary list, right?”
― Polly Shulman, The Wells Bequest