Patria Barthen

“Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye—
corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb,
leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Decker smiled and shrugged off their laughter. The humour was only barbed if you sat on the outside, and now he was one of them.”
― R.D. Ronald, The Zombie Room

“You can’t let your guard down. If you can control yourself, you can control everyone else.”
― Megan Abbott, Queenpin

“His voice sounded vaguely grandfather like, as if his brain were crowded with knowledge!”
― Scott Heim, Mysterious Skin