Mohammad Freidel

“Stanley was not a bad kid. He was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. He'd just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather! He smiled. It was a family joke. Whenever anything went wrong, they always blamed Stanley's no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather.”
― Louis Sachar, Holes

“Charlie said your friend’s disappeared,” chirped Wendy.
“No, he hasn’t.” Adam denied it. “He’s in the house. Now, look, what’s all this you’ve been telling them?”
“Nothing, I haven’t told them anything.” Charlie looked drunk.
“He said you’ve turned your friend into a crayfish,” insisted Wendy.
“He’s always making little jokes like that, and you fell for it. How am I supposed to do that, for heaven’s sake?” Adam was angry.
“With your little book you found. What’s that under your arm?”
― Max Nowaz, Get Rich or Get Lucky

“If one does not react to gossip, the informer hushes more quickly.”
― K. Ritz, Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master

“He heard the Baymen tell of war, but they never said it could be harnessed, its head held down, and made to run in place.”
― Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale